IMPORTANT READ: Playboy, Rape and Grim Fairy Tales

Media Lizzy blogs about the Playboy website putting up a graphic piece about the author’s desire to have hate sex with 10 conservative women.  Violent rape.

See NSFW/Kids screen shots HERE, that were abruptly deleted from the Playboy website – after many Republican and Conservative folks went ballistic.

The same Playboy author, Guy Cimbalo, uses the B-word in attacking Michelle Malkin and says she has “mental problems.”  So this wasn’t a fluke, something out of the ordinary for this puke.  He’s a sicko, with a sick mind…the kind of sick f__k that sometimes makes me weep, thinking about their mother or sister(s), and how his words must be such a deep hurt, so very, very painful for them.

AOL News fired liberal writer Tommy Christopher because of his repeated attempts to get coverage of the Playboy attack list on AOL’s Politics Daily. Christopher had first attempted to post this criticism of Playboy’s sick list the day it was published on their website.  Surprise, surprise, he learned that shortly after putting his article on Politics Daily it was deleted by an editor.  In his two years of writing for the site not one other post had ever been deleted by an editor

There are moral absolutes.  Guy Cimbalo and his ilk are free to choose how they live, write, and speak.  Free to behave immorally.  But that does not mean the behavior is acceptable.  Or moral.  It is not.

Go here and read, please.

Get involved, because the next time it could well be you, or someone you know. Blog this story, email it, don’t let it die until AOL and Playboy hear from those of us who know what is moral, what is right.

UPDATE:

For too long we have accepted that the Internet stands for freedom. But freedom without responsibility is mob rule, the jungle. Where being too accepting of this “freedom” has led us to was amply demonstrated in the horrid story Tommy Christopher protested. The father of that creeps story was accepting “MILF” jokes and banter, and the mother was the whole Sarah Palin deal. When a person is bankrupt of ideas or constructive criticism, now they turn to denigration and marginalization. Sometimes, most shockingly, it is done merely because it is easier.

Somehow a new code of ethics needs to be formulated, and all of us need to insist it be followed, and be prepared to suffer the slings and arrows of those who will attack us for insisting upon it. But it needs to be done.

If not, the accepted practices of some, that includes actual intrusion into our private lives and that of our own families, will become increasingly more common. It will become a more wide spread “sport” to see who can draw first blood, literally, in making journalists and bloggers to retreat from their ideas, to actually drive them off the public Internet!

Young Conservative ’s Anthem

An Internet rap video which claims to reflect true conservative values is quickly becoming a cult success:

“The Young Con Anthem,” created by two Dartmouth students, has received more than 115,000 views and has been featured on The Huffington Post, USA Today and a variety of blogs across the political spectrum.

Students David Rufful and Josh Riddle made a rap video which they say was intended to spread the views of the Young Conservatives, a group started by Rufful and Riddle with “a devout mission to spread the love and logic surrounding true conservatism,” according the organization’s Web site. http://www.theyoungcons.com/

Rufful and Riddle, both due to graduate in 2012, came to Dartmouth from the Northfield Mount Hermon School, a private school in Massachusetts.

“We didn’t think it would blow up to be this big, but it was kind of a way for us to express a pretty unique view,” Riddle said in an interview with The Dartmouth. “We kind of wanted to spread the love that’s behind the conservative movement.”

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The Reagan Way – How His Values Apply Today

How do Reagan’s values apply today?

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Stewart Skewers Pelosi On What She Knew and When She Knew It

When you’re one of the left’s favorite politicians, and you get skewered by one of the left’s favorite comedians, you know you’re in quicksand sinking fast.Such was the case Tuesday evening when the “Daily Show”’s Jon Stewart, in a segment delicously called “Waffle House,” lampooned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Cal.) ever-changing answers to what she knew about detainee interrogations and when she knew it…

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This Tax Is for You – WSJ.com

This Tax Is for You – WSJ.com.

For Oregon to enact punitive taxes on its homegrown beer industry makes as much sense as Idaho slapping an excise tax on potatoes or for New York to tax stock trading. Even without the tax increase, taxes are the single most expensive ingredient in a glass of beer, according to the Oregon Brewers Guild.

But Democrats who run the legislature are desperate for the revenues to help pay for Oregon’s 27.9% increase in the general fund budget last year. If they have their way, every time a worker steps up to the bar and orders a cold one, his tab will rise by an extra $1.25 to $1.50 a pint. Half of these taxes will be paid by Oregonians with an income below $45,000 a year. Voters might want to remember this the next time Democrats in Salem profess to be the party of Joe Six Pack.

GWB Warned Democrats About Mortgages Starting In 2001 !

This video clearly shows that George Bush warned Congress starting in 2001, that this economic crisis was Coming, if something was not done. But Congress refused to Listen, along with the arrogant Congressman, Barney Frank.This video says it all. The liberal media reportedly did not want this video on You Tube; it was taken off. This link is of the same video, but is routed through Canada. Everyone in America needs to see this before it is Yanked off the Internet again! Let’s see how far we can spread it before the liberals Pull it off the Canadian site.

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Gingrich Slams Obama over Chavez

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich tore into President Barack Obama for his friendly greeting of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, saying Obama is bolstering the “enemies of America.”Gingrich appeared on a number of morning talk shows comparing Obama to President Jimmy Carter for the smiling, hearty handshake he offered Chavez, one of the harshest critics of the United States, during the Summit of the Americas.

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Garofalo: Tea Party Goers Are Racists Who Hate Black President

From Noel Sheppard @ NewsBusters we have this:

During last year’s election campaign, liberal media members treated Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin with a hatred most Americans had never witnessed from the press.

On Thursday’s “Countdown,” MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and his guest Janeane Garofalo defamed fellow citizens who attended the prior day’s Tea Parties with the same vitriolic contempt. Garofalo actually called Party-goers “a bunch of teabagging rednecks,” adding “this is about hating a black man in the White House.  This is racism straight up.”

But that’s just the beginning, for what Olbermann and Garofalo engaged in Thursday evening is amongst the most vile, hate-filled attacks on average American citizens ever conveyed on national television by so-called journalists. Please brace yourself…

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News Censorship with Janet Napolitano

At least one (or two) on-air people at MSNBC have some common sense, and question the Obama Administration’s news censorship/control. Napolitano appeared on MSNBC and demanded (and got) control over the question(s) asked, and no followup’s.

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How Obama Got Elected

Promote then as an object of primary importance, Institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.”

–George Washington, Farewell Address, September 19, 1796

On November 4th, 2008 millions of Americans were shocked that a man of Barack Obama’s limited experience, extreme liberal positions and radical political alliances could be elected President of the United States. For many of these Americans, the explanation was rather simple… the news media, completely enamored with Obama, simply refused to do their job.

On Election day twelve Obama voters were interviewed extensively right after they voted to learn how the news media impacted their knowledge of what occurred during the campaign. These voters were chosen for their apparent intelligence/verbal abilities and willingness to express their opinions to a large audience. The rather shocking video below seeks to provide some insight into which information broke through the news media clutter and which did not.

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Obama Quits Senate After 46 Months; 21 Of Them Seeking Another Job

Well, Barack Obama’s Senate career didn’t last long — about 46 months.

It was long enough to mount a 21-month campaign to move on to a more “prestigious” job, housing included.

The President-elect announced he’ll resign his seat in the Senate on Sunday,  just before the Senate is set to resume lame-duck sessions.

It is a good thing his election (being half African-American as he is) was a significant and over-due historical milestone, otherwise his election would be known for something much less significant — the most under-qualified and inexperienced person in the modern era to assume the Presidency of the United States.

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CA Gay’s Are Cowering, Cowardly Morons Who Deserve Prop 8

By Being Afraid To Confront California’s Liberal Democratic Establishment & Obama’s Campaign Managers, California’s Gays Lost Big.

So why are they trampling crosses and blaming Christian conservatives?  They didn’t pass it. Democrats, Obama supporters did.

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Here are some facts as opposed to the bullshit being blogged and talked about California’s Proposition 8:

• 52% of the electorate supported the ban on same-sex marriage
• Men and Women supported it fairly equally
• 53% of Latinos threw their support to the ban
• 70% of African Americans supported it
• President-Elect Barack Obama has his opposition to Gay marriage, on religious grounds
  
• 49% of Asians supported it
• 61% of Californian’s supported Obama, 10% higher than were against Prop 8
• House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has stated her strong opposition to Gay marriage
  

• DEMOCRATS ARE STILL THE LARGEST VOTING GROUP, BUT NUMBER OF INDEPENDENTS AT NEW HIGH.

  At the close of registration for the June 2008 primary, 16.1 million of the 23 million eligible voters in the state were registered to vote: 44% as Democrats, 33% as Republicans, and 19% as independents. The number of Californians registered in the Republican Party has declined since the 2004 primary, while the numbers of Democrats and independents have both increased by over half a million voters: Democrats from 6.5 to 7.1 million; independents from 2.5 to 3.1 million.

• REGISTERED AND LIKELY VOTERS VARY NOTABLY ACROSS REGIONS.

  Although Los Angeles County is home to the largest share of the state’s adult population (27%), only 25% of the state’s likely voters reside in the county, which also includes the largest percentage of residents in the state not registered to vote (32%). The San Francisco Bay Area constitutes 20% of the state’s adult population but claims 23% of the state’s likely voters and only 15% of those not registered to vote. On the other hand, the proportions of the overall adult population and likely voters are similar in the Central Valley, Orange/San Diego Counties, and the Inland Empire. For example, the Central Valley contains 17% of the state’s adult population and 17% of its likely voters.

• Among those voters self-identifying as “Christians” as a whole, 70% supported Proposition 8. But by racial break down, over 85% of African American’s supported it.  Slightly more Black women supported the proposition than did Black men.

So, what this tells us is that although the San Francisco area has less total voters than the Los Angeles area, more Bay Area citizens actually turn out to vote.  By a margin of 15% over Christian’s as a whole, African American voters supported it. Over 90% of them were Democrats.

Once again, Gay’s have misplaced their loyalty for absolutely no logical reason. Once again, the Gay Community has turned a blind eye to reality and are “blaming” their loss on White, Conservative Christians, when in point of fact, if more liberal Democrats who were Black, Hispanic and Asian had opposed Prop 8, if Barack Obama had not come out in opposition to Gay marriage, the measure would have been defeated.

So long as Gay’s participate in this blatant fraud on the part of their so-called leaders, ignoring the party and political philosophy (liberalism) which has always sold them down the river, they have no one to blame but themselves.  They are so insecure and afraid to lay the blame where it belongs, they will continue to abdicate responsibility for their future, for their lack of political power.

Where are the Gay leaders with the integrity to acknowledge they were not done in by Christians, White Christians, but were done in by the Liberal Democrats and their demogogery, like Obama’s,  of opposing Gay marriage, but also opposing Proposition 8?  Can’t they acknowledge the truth?  Or do they prefer playing victim, blaming Christians, and Republicans out of habit?

Thousands of gay rights activists have been lining the streets of California cities to express their deep anger, frustration and demoralization at the passage of Proposition 8. And this week, organizers said they were ready to take their fight global.  As the grassroots coalition of loosely-organized groups on such websites as Facebook and MySpace succeeded in delivering winning numbers of protesters in California and Utah, momentum for a national, and even international, effort has emerged.

Signs that California was about to export its newly-found gay activism first appeared over the weekend. I predict this is but the tip of the iceberg in a new Culture War front.  There are tens of thousands of radical leftist organizers with nothing to do after the Obama victory.  Nothing to do but falsely blame Christians for all manner of complaints, and the attacks on Mormons and Evangelical Christian churches has already began.

Have no doubt the Obama organization is breathing a sigh of relief, and certainly encouraging all this, because it will distract President-elect Obama’s most radical, fanatical supporters from focusing on his failure to make good on his most left-wing promises.

On Wednesday, in New York City, thousands of gay rights activists lined themselves along Columbus Ave. outside of the Manhattan Mormon Temple near Lincoln Center to protest Mormon involvement in the passage of Proposition 8.

Gay rights activists say the Mormon Church’s meddling – and overwhelming financial support – in California politics tipped approval of the gay marriage ban. Many of the protests in California were directed at the Mormon Church.

Dennis Williams told The Associate Press:

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I’m fed up and disgusted with religious institutions taking political stances and calling them moral when it’s nothing but politics.  Meanwhile they enjoy tax-free status while tying to deny me rights that should be mine at the state and federal level.”

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The Obama victory and the complicity of the press in actively supporting and promoting him has unleased a major Culture War initiative.  Watch and see.

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Obama To Close Gitmo, Bring Terrorists To U.S. !

President-elect Barack Obama’s advisers are quietly crafting a proposal to ship dozens, if not hundreds, of imprisoned terrorism suspects to the United States to face criminal trials, a plan that would make good on his promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison but could require creation of a controversial new system of justice.

During his campaign, Obama described Guantanamo as a “sad chapter in American history” and has said generally that the U.S. legal system is equipped to handle the detainees. But he has offered few details on what he planned to do once the facility is closed.

Under plans being put together in Obama’s camp, some detainees would be released and many others would be prosecuted in U.S. criminal courts.

A third group of detainees — the ones whose cases are most entangled in highly classified information — might have to go before a new court designed especially to handle sensitive national security cases, according to advisers and Democrats involved in the talks. Advisers participating directly in the planning spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans are not final.

Laurence Tribe, a left-wing Harvard law professor and Obama legal adviser, said discussions about plans for Guantanamo had been “theoretical” before the election but would quickly become very focused because closing the prison is a top priority. Bringing the detainees to the United States will be controversial, he said, but could be accomplished.

“I think the answer is going to be, they can be as securely guarded on U.S. soil as anywhere else,” Tribe said. “We can’t put people in a dungeon forever without processing whether they deserve to be there.”

The Treatment of Bush Has Been a Disgrace — WSJ Commentary

What must our enemies be thinking?

By JEFFREY SCOTT SHAPIRO

Earlier this year, 12,000 people in San Francisco signed a petition in support of a proposition on a local ballot to rename an Oceanside sewage plant after George W. Bush. The proposition is only one example of the classless disrespect many Americans have shown the president.

According to recent Gallup polls, the president’s average approval rating is below 30% — down from his 90% approval in the wake of 9/11. Mr. Bush has endured relentless attacks from the left while facing abandonment from the right.

This is the price Mr. Bush is paying for trying to work with both Democrats and Republicans. During his 2004 victory speech, the president reached out to voters who supported his opponent, John Kerry, and said, “Today, I want to speak to every person who voted for my opponent. To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support, and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust.”

Those bipartisan efforts have been met with crushing resistance from both political parties.

The president’s original Supreme Court choice of Harriet Miers alarmed Republicans, while his final nomination of Samuel Alito angered Democrats. His solutions to reform the immigration system alienated traditional conservatives, while his refusal to retreat in Iraq has enraged liberals who have unrealistic expectations about the challenges we face there.

It seems that no matter what Mr. Bush does, he is blamed for everything. He remains despised by the left while continuously disappointing the right.

Yet it should seem obvious that many of our country’s current problems either existed long before Mr. Bush ever came to office, or are beyond his control. Perhaps if Americans stopped being so divisive, and congressional leaders came together to work with the president on some of these problems, he would actually have had a fighting chance of solving them.

Like the president said in his 2004 victory speech, “We have one country, one Constitution and one future that binds us. And when we come together and work together, there is no limit to the greatness of America.”

To be sure, Mr. Bush is not completely alone. His low approval ratings put him in the good company of former Democratic President Harry S. Truman, whose own approval rating sank to 22% shortly before he left office. Despite Mr. Truman’s low numbers, a 2005 Wall Street Journal poll found that he was ranked the seventh most popular president in history.

Just as Americans have gained perspective on how challenging Truman’s presidency was in the wake of World War II, our country will recognize the hardship President Bush faced these past eight years — and how extraordinary it was that he accomplished what he did in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.

Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty — a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.

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Mr. Shapiro is an investigative reporter and lawyer who previously interned with John F. Kerry’s legal team during the presidential election in 2004.

Check out a sampling of responses received to this article here.

Cowboy Up, Folks….

I found this commentary, written by conservative blogger DelD:

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DelD Offers His Congratulations Speech

So Obama won. It’s not the end of the world. Everybody chill out.

1) It’s hardly a popular vote blowout. McCain kept it close in a tough anti-republican climate, and there’s a still a significant proportion of the population that’s with us, nearly 50%, in fact.

2) If Barack does win, he do so only by pretending to be a centrist and a tax-cutter. And that lie is going to be exposed riki-tik. By 2010, the entire country will know just how liberal Obama is, and the pendulum will swing. It’ll be up to us to see that it swings far enough.

3) It’s important to remember that we’re conservatives, not liberals, or “progressives” or whatever they’re calling themselves this week.

Politics isn’t our life, and if we lose an election cycle, we’re still going to be happier as a group then they will ever be, even after they’ve won this one.

Like they always do, hardcore liberal voters have placed all their hopes and dreams into one, terribly flawed, terribly human basket. And without doubt they will be terribly disappointed, especially when they learn they’ve still got to pay their own mortgage and buy their own gas.

Their Messiah, ain’t one, which will become painfully apparent to them soon enough.

Meanwhile, here on the right, we have low expectations of human nature and even lower expectations of government. It’s hard to disappoint us.

And unlike the liberals, all of our hopes and dreams are in exactly the same place they were yesterday, in our family, our friends, our local community, in our work, in our religious faith, and in our country. Those are the great constants, always there for us even when we suffer the greatest of setbacks.

Yep, tough times are ahead, and we’re going to have to fight like somsabitches to keep Obama and the Congress from screwing things up too much in the next two years. But, we’ve been there before, and we’ve prevailed before.

4) Don’t give the fucktards on the left the satisfaction of seeing you all act like a bunch of hysterical schoolgirls. They’re the ones who can’t take defeat. We can take our lumps, get up, and keep fighting. We should be Happy Warriors. whose proper response to this is mockery, good humor, and hard work. We lost and election, but we’re still right, and they’re still wrong.

Anyway, it’s time to cowboy up, and get ready for the next go round.”

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Very sound (if salty) advice!

Palin Starts Pushing Back. About Time!

Sarah Palin’s spokeswoman denies the wave of anonymous post-election criticism reportedly coming from some members of John McCain’s campaign team.

Sarah Palin’s allies are pushing back against a stream of accusations leaking out of John McCain’s campaign that the Alaska governor was incompetent during the run-up to the election. One Palin aide called the charges “sickening.”

Palin spokeswoman Meghan Stapleton on Friday denied reports that have surfaced since Election Day that there was tension between the vice presidential candidate and McCain’s staff.

They range from claims that Palin went on extensive spending sprees to accounts that campaign officials had serious doubts about her preparedness to to be vice president.

Sources told FOX News, for instance, that Palin did not realize that Africa was a continent and not a country, and that she could not name the nations that had signed the North American Free Trade Agreement.Palin herself brushed off the finger-pointing Wednesday, saying she wouldn’t engage “any of the negativity” or “pettiness” from anonymous sources.

Stapleton released a written statement Friday calling the charges “unfortunate and, quite honestly, sickening.”

“The accusations we are hearing and reading are not true and since we deny all these anonymous allegations, there is nothing specific to which we will respond,”. “We have the highest regards for Senator John McCain. Governor Palin was honored to be chosen as McCain’s running mate.”

Newsweek also reported that Palin may have spent “tens of thousands” of dollars more on wardrobe expenses than the $150,000 that was reported in the days before Election Day. The money allegedly went toward clothes for her and her family from high-end stores, even though she was originally told to buy just three suits and hire a stylist for the Republican National Convention.

One aide called the spree “Wasilla hillbillies looting Neiman Marcus from coast to coast,” according to the magazine. Palin also reportedly asked to speak at McCain’s concession speech Tuesday, and was denied.

McCain adviser Nicole Wallace defended Palin on NBC’s “Today Show” Friday morning, saying the Alaska governor “did nothing wrong.”

“She is, perhaps, the most un-diva politician I’ve ever seen,” she said. “The only thing I’ve ever seen her ask for is a diet soda.”

Palin said right after the election that she’s sorry if she cost McCain even “one vote.”

But some are tired of what they say looks like scapegoating.

Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum says that McCain himself needs to come out and put a stop to the Palin criticism.

“She’s the one that energized the base, she’s the one that got the crowds out. … She’s the one that comes out of this without any scars and now they’re trying to give her some,” Santorum said. “John McCain should come out and say, ‘This is ridiculous,’ and set the record straight.”

I want to know where is John and Cindy McCain? The John and Cindy McCain I know are really too decent and savvy not to speak out….

New National Anthem: “My President Is Black”

There is a new national slogan/anthem catching on among America’s youth. It’s a popular rap song, a t-shirt, and a taunting chant.

It is this: “MY PRESIDENT IS BLACK.”

Google it. They’re blasting it on the streets of Chicago, saying it like a prayer in Durham, singing it on campus, and putting it on their kids’ clothes in Harlem.

Obama supporter and rapper Young Jeezy, who worked the phone banks for his candidate before Election Day, penned “My President Is Black” in time for the Democrat convention in August and invoked it after Obama’s victory.

Language Warning! NOT safe for work.

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This item appeared in the news, an indicator that things are getting out of control more rapidly than anyone expected:

My senior at an upscale Cobb County Georgia (Newt’s old district) high school came home today in tears. Every black student at this school, where race isn’t usually an indicator of whether or not the teens are friends…they all get along and are for the most part, almost all college bound… was wearing their Obama t-shirts today. Many of them said, “My president is BLACK.” Many had Obama’s head printed on cardboard and waved them through the halls taunting the white kids with, “McCain sucks” and “F– McCain.”

Anyone who’d previously professed support for McCain is being taunted with “racist.”

My daughter asked the assistant principal what would happen if she came to school tomorrow with a t-shirt that said, “My president is white” on it. The answer was something like, “I’m with you, but there’s nothing we can do about it.”

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, the AP and a dozen more.

Rush’s Cure For Election Blues – Buys Woman $58,000 Car!

Belinda Davis with Chevy Tahoe given to her by Rush Limbaugh

During the run-up to the presidential election, conservative radio talk show king Rush Limbaugh fielded calls from listeners who were concerned about an Obama administration, including a Texas woman by the name of Belinda Davis who he thought sounded a bit under the weather with a cold.

“Have you heard of Zicam?” Limbaugh asked. “I would go out and get some and swab your nose. I’ll tell you what else I am going to do. I’m going to send you a copy of Vince Flynn’s latest novel.”In addition to Vince Flynn’s latest novel, I’m going to buy you a car,” he added.

Of course Belinda Davis at first thought that the self proclaimed conservative prophet was kidding. Today she is cruising the Lone Star State in a brand new Black Chevy Tahoe worth $58,000.00, courtesy of Limbaugh, whose only conditions for giving her the car was that she try his recommended cold medication and that the car be made by General Motors.

It was on a whim, Limbaugh said.  She sounded so tired, distraught, and frightened about her and her husband’s business future with an Obama victory.

I just wanted to brighten her day, keep her inspired and ‘in the game. We will need people like Belinda Davis to keep the country moving.”

Davis runs a small jewelry business with her husband in Kerrville, Texas and called Limbaugh on Oct. 28 to complain about Hollywood celebrities getting undo attention during the election season while everyday working people like herself and her husband are ignored.

Belinda Davis told Gretchen Carlson of Fox News in an interview that the story tugged at Limbaugh’s heart strings and she was just in the line of his heart.

And as luck would have it, the transmission had just died in her car, and they were worried they wouldn’t be able to afford the increased monthly payments on a new one.

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Gay Marriage Ban Sparks Gay Rioting In California

Thousands took to the streets of the Los Angeles area and San Francisco Wednesday evening to protest California’s passage of Proposition 8, a ban on gay marriage. Before long the demonstrations turned violent.

Demonstrators marched together on streets in West Hollywood and Hollywood where several protesters stopped at busy intersections, screamed obscenities at motorists, were blocking traffic and prompting intervention by police.

An additional group of about 500 protesters gathered near CNN’s Los Angeles bureau, where they were seen banging on the doors and walls, breaking glass and throwing objects,  causing the Los Angeles Police Department to declare a tactical alert — requiring all available officers to respond to the protest — some of whom were brought in from other stations.

Television cameras showed one protester jumping on top of a police car at the intersection of Hollywood and Highland. He was quickly wrestled to the ground by police and handcuffed.

Several others were arrested when a group of people broke away from the larger demonstration that began in West Hollywood earlier in the evening.

In San Francisco, hundreds gathered on the steps of City Hall to protest approval of the ban.

Protesters held candles and carried signs that read “We all Deserve the Freedom to Marry” as part of the event, which was sponsored by groups opposed to Proposition 8.

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom expressed frustration in the ban, but said he is hopeful it will be overturned.

The loss was a big political defeat for Newsom, who’s been one of the most prominent advocates of same-sex marriage. He says the effect on his gubernatorial aspirations is “trivial” and “irrelevant.”

Meg Waters, part of the Yes on 8 campaign team, told City News Service, “gay and lesbian couples have exactly the same protections under the law with civil unions.”

“Marriage has been defined as a man and woman since time began,” Waters said. “The people of California have voted twice, so I think the best thing to do is for everybody involved to figure out a way to move forward.”

Waters said she understands “how gays and lesbians may feel concerned about this.”

“If they stop and look at the situation, they have the exact same legal protections and rights under the law today they had yesterday,” Waters said.

You can’t change the definition of something that existed forever because you don’t like it.”

Thank You John McCain | We will never give up

Thank you, John McCain.

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McCain Concedes, Obama Elected 44th President In Our 233rd Year Of Independence

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Senator John McCain’s Concession Speech:

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We have come to the end of a long journey. The American people have spoken, and they have spoken clearly.

A little while ago, I had the honor of calling senator Barack Obama to congratulate him on being elected the next president of the country that we both love. In a contest as long and difficult as this campaign has been, his success alone commands my respect for his ability and perseverance. But that he managed to do so by inspiring the hopes of so many millions of Americans who had once wrongly believed that they had little at stake or little influence in the election of an American president is something I deeply admire and commend him for achieving.

This is an historic election, and I recognize the special significance it has for African-Americans and for the special pride that must be theirs tonight.

I’ve always believed that America offers opportunities to all who have the industry and will to seize it. Senator Obama believes that, too.

But we both recognize that, though we have come a long way from the old injustices that once stained our nation’s reputation and denied some Americans the full blessings of American citizenship, the memory of them still had the power to wound.

A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt’s invitation of Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters.

America today is a world away from the cruel and frightful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African-American to the presidency of the United States.

Let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth.Senator Obama has achieved a great thing for himself and for his country. I applaud him for it, and offer him my sincere sympathy that his beloved grandmother did not live to see this day. Though our faith assures us she is at rest in the presence of her creator and so very proud of the good man she helped raise.

Senator Obama and I have had and argued our differences, and he has prevailed. No doubt many of those differences remain.

These are difficult times for our country. And I pledge to him tonight to do all in my power to help him lead us through the many challenges we face.

I urge all Americans who supported me to join me in not just congratulating him, but offering our next president our good will and earnest effort to find ways to come together to find the necessary compromises to bridge our differences and help restore our prosperity, defend our security in a dangerous world, and leave our children and grandchildren a stronger, better country than we inherited.

Whatever our differences, we are fellow Americans. And please believe me when I say no association has ever meant more to me than that.

It is natural. It’s natural, tonight, to feel some disappointment. But tomorrow, we must move beyond it and work together to get our country moving again.

We fought — we fought as hard as we could. And though we fell short, the failure is mine, not yours.

I am so deeply grateful to all of you for the great honor of your support and for all you have done for me. I wish the outcome had been different, my friends.

The road was a difficult one from the outset, but your support and friendship never wavered. I cannot adequately express how deeply indebted I am to you.

I’m especially grateful to my wife, Cindy, my children, my dear mother and all my family, and to the many old and dear friends who have stood by my side through the many ups and downs of this long campaign.

I have always been a fortunate man, and never more so for the love and encouragement you have given me.

You know, campaigns are often harder on a candidate’s family than on the candidate, and that’s been true in this campaign.

All I can offer in compensation is my love and gratitude and the promise of more peaceful years ahead.

for their tireless dedication to our cause, and the courage and grace they showed in the rough and tumble of a presidential campaign.

I am also — I am also, of course, very thankful to Governor Sarah Palin, one of the best campaigners I have ever seen, and an impressive new voice in our party for reform and the principles that have always been our greatest strength, her husband Todd and their five beautiful children. We can all look forward with great interest to her future service to Alaska, the Republican Party and our country.

To all my campaign comrades, from Rick Davis and Steve Schmidt and Mark Salter, to every last volunteer who fought so hard and valiantly, month after month, in what at times seemed to be the most challenged campaign in modern times, thank you so much. A lost election will never mean more to me than the privilege of your faith and friendship.

I don’t know — I don’t know what more we could have done to try to win this election. I’ll leave that to others to determine. Every candidate makes mistakes, and I’m sure I made my share of them. But I won’t spend a moment of the future regretting what might have been.

This campaign was and will remain the great honor of my life, and my heart is filled with nothing but gratitude for the experience and to the American people for giving me a fair hearing before deciding that Senator Obama and my old friend Senator Joe Biden should have the honor of leading us for the next four years.

I would not — I would not be an American worthy of the name should I regret a fate that has allowed me the extraordinary privilege of serving this country for a half a century.

Today, I was a candidate for the highest office in the country I love so much. And tonight, I remain her servant. That is blessing enough for anyone, and I thank the people of Arizona for it.

Tonight — tonight, more than any night, I hold in my heart nothing but love for this country and for all its citizens, whether they supported me or Senator Obama.

I wish Godspeed to the man who was my former opponent and will be my president. And I call on all Americans, as I have often in this campaign, to not despair of our present difficulties, but to believe, always, in the promise and greatness of America, because nothing is inevitable here.

Americans never quit! We never surrender! We never hide from history! We make history! Thank you, and God bless you, and God bless America.

ONN first to call race

Amazing!

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Obama Remarks About Bankrupting Coal Industry–VIDEO!

So, if you think what Obama said was taken out of context, we now have actual video, not just audio of what he said.

Watch it and decide for yourself.

Barack Obama, inexperienced as he is, with all his radical-left associations, his wanting to bankrupt the coal industry….is a dangerous gamble for America.Obama is just too risky.

For you. For your family. For America’s future.

58% of America’s electricity is generated by coal. Obama also promises “skyrocketing” electric bills, because he wants greener power, and in spite of the economy, nothing will deter him from his radical liberal agenda.

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THE REAL BARACK OBAMA – POLAROID

Barack Obama, inexperienced as he is, with all his radical-left associations, his wanting to bankrupt the coal industry….is a dangerous gamble for America.Obama is just too risky. Too risky for you…..too risky for your family.http://tinyurl.com/5atzhe

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THE REAL BARACK OBAMA – BITTER

Barack Obama, inexperienced as he is, with all his radical-left associations, his wanting to bankrupt the coal industry….is a dangerous gamble for America.Obama is just too risky. Too risky for you, your family.http://tinyurl.com/5atzhe

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Voter Docs Found On Tampa Highway

Voter docs found on Tampa highway
TAMPA – Election Day isn’t even here yet, but we already have our first voting mystery. Thousands of pages of voter information were found lying along the shoulder of Interstate 4 this morning. The papers, all with information about Hillsborough County voters, have been cleaned up and taken to a Department of Transportation maintenance facility for now, but voting officials still don’t know where they came from. Transportation workers spotted the nine bags of documents on their traffic cameras along a ramp off I-4 and I-275. The Hillsborough County supervisor of elections says it did not come from his office, but looks like it may have come from a campaign office or a grassroots effort which drives voters to polling paces. The documents contain names, addresses, phone numbers, and party affiliation, and if the voter needs a ride. Transportation officials have called the Florida Division of Elections to see if the state office wants to investigate, and are waiting back for a response. If not, the plan is to shred the documents this afternoon.	Voter information was found along the shoulder of I-4.

Call Rashid Jhalidi, Ask Him Why He Won’t Release Obama Video

The LA Times seems to think it’s not in the public interest what went on at the Jew bashing party Barack Obama attended at his friend Rashid Khalidi’s house.

I was thinking…if the LA Times doesn’t want Americans to know, maybe Professor Khalidi will let us know.

He does not take calls from journalists…only private citizens…

• Call 212.666.5463

Amazing little thing that Google search…

Hat Tip to Scattershooting.

Radical-Lib Radio Host Karel Calls For Joe Wurzelbacher’s Death – In On-Air Obscenity Laced Tirade

H/T to Radio Equalizer’s Brian Maloney who picked up this on-air obscenity laced diatribe from San Francisco KGO radio host Karel, who called for the “death” of Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, AKA “Joe the Plumber.”

San Francisco KGO radio host Karel, has called for the “death” of Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, AKA “Joe the Plumber”in on-the-air tirade.

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F__G__D__Joe the G__D__M__F__plumber! I want M__F Joe the plumber dead!”

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Maloney notes some interesting background information on the San Francisco radio host: Karel, also known as Charles Karel Bouley, is an evening and weekend host at KGO radio in San Francisco.

Based in Los Angeles, Karel is a gay activist who also writes for the Huffington Post website.

This latest incident caps a weekend of unhinged behavior by Obama’s supporters, including a call for the death of Mormons campaigning on behalf of Proposition 8 in California and the push for an investigation into the “leak” that Obama’s aunt was an illegal alien facing deportation.

Don’t expect the mainstream media to tell Barack Obama to reign in his supporters, as they still are still looking for the imaginary McCain supporter who yelled out “terrorist” to Obama’s name at a McCain rally.

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Imagine Obama without a Teleprompter?

Barack Obama, inexperienced as he is, with all his radical-left associations, his wanting to bankrupt the coal industry….is a dangerous gamble for America.

Obama is too risky.

Also see:  http://tinyurl.com/5atzhe

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Kansas City Bishop: Obama Voters Could Jeopardize Their ‘Eternal Salvation’

Barack Obama, inexperienced as he is, with all his radical-left associations, his wanting to bankrupt the coal industry….is a dangerous gamble for America.

Obama is just too risky.

Also see: http://tinyurl.com/5atzhe

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OBAMA WILL: Bankrupt the Coal Industry, Raise Your Electric Bills

Barack Obama is a dangerous gamble for America.

Obama is not fit to lead.

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Jeremiah Wright

Barack Obama: A dangerous gamble for America.

Obama is not fit to lead.

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Amazingly, Obama Lets His Guard Down, Shows True Eco-Terrorist Leanings

Obama tells San Francisco Chronicle Editorial Board he will bankrupt U.S. Coal Industry!

Once again, a tape has come out that shows what happens when Barack Obama lets his guard down just a bit, being among like-minded radical liberals in San Francisco, like when he made his comment about Americans “clinging to their guns and religion” being a “problem”.  Listen to Barack Obama tell his supporters in San Francisco how he won’t come out against Coal power to generate electricity, he will just make it so expensive to mine it, to use it for power generation, he will make sure it bankrupts them!

The audio file has been on the San Francisco Chronicle’s website since Obama’s January interview with its editorial board.

Almost 30,000 Americans make their living in the Coal Industry.  Too bad for them. Listen to Obama’s cynical “tough shit for them” tone of voice, his almost smirking attitude at how he will make sure we stop using coal without actually outlawing it.

49% of all the electricity generated in America is from coal!

Interesting that the Mainstream Media, if they have covered this story, only mentions that the audio has been posted on the Chronicle’s website since January, and is trying to spin Obama’s promise to bankrupt the coal industry, if they mention that part at all. Their own story about Obama’s appearance before their Editorial Board mentions several highlights from their questioning of him, but none of bits they highlight is about coal.

Obama is a very dangerous gamble. He really is not ready to lead.

Please spread this information everywhere you can! Please post it to every board, wiki or blog you read. Especially in coal states like Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.

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The only thing I’ve said with respect to coal, I haven’t been some coal booster. What I have said is that for us to take coal off the table as a (sic) ideological matter as opposed to saying if technology allows us to use coal in a clean way, we should pursue it.

So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can.

It’s just that it will bankrupt them.”

Amazing that this statement by Obama about bankrupting the coal industry has been kept under wraps until this time.

UPDATE: NewsBusters’ Tom Blumer has found out that the San Francisco Chronicle story published on January 18 based upon this January 17 interview did not include any mention of Obama’s willingness to bankrupt the coal industry which you can hear on the audio. You can read the story here when you scroll down to the “In His Own Words” section. Way to cover up for The One, SF Chronicle!

West Virginia officials responded to Obama’s anti-coal statements today:

The senior vice president of the West Virginia Coal Association called Obama’s comments “unbelievable.”

“His comments are unfortunate,” Chris Hamilton said Sunday, “and really reflect a very uninformed voice and perspective to coal specifically and energy generally.”

Hamilton noted other times Obama and vice presidential candidate Joe Biden have made seemingly anti-coal statements.

“In Ohio recently, when Joe Biden said ‘not here’ about building coal-fired power plants — this is exactly what will happen,” Hamilton said. “Financing won’t be directed here. It will all go aboard for plants elsewhere in the world. The United Sates is importing more coal today from Indonesia, South Africa and Colombia than we ever have.

“If we’re going to create a situation where coal-fired power plants are at that much of a disadvantage, there will be new ones built. But as Biden said, just not here.”

Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s state director said Obama’s statements are troubling, especially for West Virginians.

Obama Claims He Didn’t Know Aunt’s Illegal Status!

Barack Obama throws “dear aunti” under the bus, already crowded with friends and former political associates.

Obama said Saturday he was unaware that one of his relatives from Kenya was living in the United States illegally and added that believes the appropriate laws should be followed.

The Associated Press reported Friday that Obama’s aunt had been instructed to leave the country four years ago by an immigration judge who rejected her request for asylum from her native Kenya.

The woman, Zeituni Onyango is living in public housing in Boston and is the half-sister of Obama’s late father.

As I predicted in an earlier post, the Obama campaign said in a written statement:

Senator Obama has no knowledge of her status but obviously believes that any and all appropriate laws be followed,”

The campaign said it was returning $260 that Onyango had contributed in small increments to Obama’s presidential bid over several months. Federal election law prohibits foreigners from making political donations. Onyango listed her employer as the Boston Housing Authority and last gave $5 on Sept. 19.

Obama’s campaign said he had seen her a few times since that meeting, beginning with a return trip to Kenya with his future wife, Michelle, in 1992. Onyango visited the family in Chicago on a tourist visa at Obama’s invitation about nine years ago, the campaign said, stopping to visit friends on the East Coast before returning to Kenya.

She attended Obama’s swearing-in to the U.S. Senate in 2004, but campaign officials said Obama provided no assistance in getting her a tourist visa and doesn’t know the details of her stay. The campaign said he last heard from her about two years ago when she called saying she was in Boston, but he did not see her there. And of course, Senator Obama, being the self-absorbed, driven politician he is, never once gave a thought as to why his dear old auntie was still in the country….

Onyango moved into public housing a year before her request for asylum was rejected, a spokeswoman for the Boston Housing Authority told FOXNews.com.

“If there was a deportation order, we wouldn’t have known about it,” spokeswoman Lydia Agro said, explaining that there is no mechanism in place for her agency to get that information.

“We were unaware of her status until this morning,” Agro said.  Hmmmm, so I guess even a terrorist, here after their tourist visa had expired, and ordered deported, could stay indefinitely on the taxpayers dime, without fear of discovery?  Of course Obama’s dear auntie isn’t a terrorist, but if she could stay, anyone could, right?

UPDATE!! — Obama’s Kenyan Aunt: Illegal Immigrant!

Zeituni Onyango is staying with relatives in Cleveland, after fleeing her Boston apartment where she had been living illegally for four years!

President-elect Barack Obama’s aunt intends to fight a deportation order and hopes to remain in the United States, her immigration lawyer said Friday.

The Associated Press found that Zeituni Onyango, 56, is staying with relatives in Cleveland after fleeing her public housing apartment in Boston. She had been living there five years.

Onyango, who is Obama’s father’s half-sister, was ordered to leave the country in 2004 by an immigration judge who rejected her request for asylum from her native Kenya.

Cleveland attorney Margaret Wong told the AP on Friday she is exploring legal options and may file a motion to reopen Onyango’s case or file an appeal for her to stay on humanitarian grounds. She would not discuss Onyango’s reasons for seeking asylum in the United States.

“She will do whatever she can do to fight for the privilege to stay in America,” she said.

Barack Obama’s aunt, a Kenyan woman who has been quietly living on welfare in  a run-down public housing project in Boston, is in the United States illegally after an immigration judge rejected her request for asylum four years ago, the Associated Press has learned.

Zeituni Onyango, 56, referred to as “Aunti Zeituni” in Obama’s memoir, was instructed to leave the United States by a U.S. immigration judge who denied her asylum request, a person familiar with the matter told the AP late Friday. This person spoke on condition of anonymity because no one was authorized to discuss Onyango’s case.

Information about the deportation case was disclosed and confirmed by two separate sources, one of them a federal law enforcment official.

Onyango’s refusal to leave the country would represent an administrative, non-criminal violation of U.S. immigration law, meaning such cases are handled outside the criminal court system.

Onyango is not a relative whom Obama has discussed in campaign appearances and, unlike Obama’s father and grandmother, is not someone who has been part of the public discussion about his personal life.

A spokeswoman for U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, Kelly Nantel, said the government does not comment on an individual’s citizenship status or immigration case.

Onyango’s case — coming to light just days before the presidential election — led to an unusual nationwide directive within Immigrations and Customs Enforcement requiring any deportations prior to Tuesday’s election to be approved at least at the level of ICE regional directors, the U.S. law enforcement official told the AP.

The unusual directive suggests that the Bush administration is sensitive to the political implications of Onyango’s case coming to light so close to the election.

One of the sources acknowledged he was not a supporter of Obama or John McCain and said he has no plans to vote on Tuesday. He said that was not a motive for releasing the information.

The disclosure about Onyango came just one day after Obama’s presidential campaign confirmed to the Times of London that Onyango, who has lived quietly in public housing in South Boston for five years, was Obama’s half aunt on his father’s side.

It was not immediately clear how Onyango might have qualified for public housing with a standing deportation order.

She even made an illegal campaign contribution to the Obama campaign of $260.00. Only American citizens are allowed under law to donate to presidential campaigns. The Obama campaign has not returned the money.

I wonder how long it will be before we are told Obama, of course, had no idea she had been ordered to leave the country, no idea she was in fact an illegal alien?  Any bets on his knowing she was subsisting on welfare, in a dilapidated public housing project as well?  For a man who has spent countless hours telling America how important family values are to him, Christian values, this is indeed strange, isn’t it?

No, not really.  We already knew Barack Obama is an arrogant, narcissistic empty suit, a snobbish liar who will do anything to win.

Schwarzenegger to McCain: I Got Your Six

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger campaigns for John McCain in Columbus, Ohio, on October 31, 2008. Great video, and a terrific speech by the Governator, saying John McCain has served America longer in a POW camp than Obama has been in the United States Senate.Schwarzenegger said while he played an action figure in the movies, John McCain was one in real life.

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Obama The Clause

Once you get past the soaring oratory, to experience a speech by Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., is to be hit with an astoundingly lengthy list of promises.

“I don’t know how any reasonable person” could think he’d really be able to accomplish everything he’s pledging to do, said the mother-in-law of a colleague, a Missouri woman who intends to vote for Obama.

Just today in Sarasota, Fla., the Democratic presidential nominee said that he’d:

• “give a tax break to 95 percent of Americans who work every day and get taxes taken out of their paycheck every week”;

• “eliminate income taxes on Social Security for seniors making under $50,000″;
• “give homeowners and working parents additional tax breaks”;
• not increase taxes on anyone if they “make under $250,000; you will not see your taxes increase by a single dime –- not your income taxes, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains tax”;
• “end those breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas”;
• “give tax breaks to companies that invest right here in the United States”;
• “eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses and start-up companies that are the engine of job creation in this country”;
• “create two million new jobs by rebuilding our crumbling roads, and bridges, and schools — by laying broadband lines to reach every corner of the country”;
• “invest $15 billion a year in renewable sources of energy to create five million new energy jobs over the next decade”;
• “reopen old factories, old plants, to build solar panels, and wind turbines”;
• build “a new electricity grid”;
• “build the fuel efficient cars of tomorrow”;
• “eliminate the oil we import from the Middle East in 10 years”;
• “lower premiums” for those who already have health insurance;
• “if you don’t have health insurance, you’ll be able to get the same kind of health insurance that members of Congress give themselves”;
• “end discrimination by insurance companies to the sick and those who need care the most”;
• “invest in early childhood education”;
• “recruit an army of new teachers”;
• “pay our teachers higher salaries, give them more support. But … also demand higher standards and more accountability”;
• “make a deal with every young person who’s here and every young person in America: If you are willing to commit yourself to national service, whether it’s serving in our military or in the Peace Corps, working in a veterans home or a homeless shelter, then we will guarantee that you can afford to go to college no ifs ands or buts”;
• “stop spending $10 billion a month in Iraq whole the Iraqis have a huge surplus”;
• “end this war in Iraq”;
• “finish the fight and snuff out al Qaeda and bin Laden”;
• “increase our ground troops and our investments in the finest fighting force in the world”;
• “invest in 21st century technologies so that our men and women have the best training and equipment when they deploy into combat and the care and benefits they have earned when they come home”;
• “No more homeless veterans”; and
• “no more fighting for disability payments.”

This on top of his 30-minute infomercial last night, and the myriad other pledges and promises he’s made throughout the last 21 months.

It’s quite a list!

He does call for some sacrifices, though nothing that would equal the cost of these measures.

• “Washington is going to have to tighten its belt. It’s going to have to put off spending on things we don’t need. As president, I’m gonna go through the federal budget, line-by-line, and we’re going to end programs that we don’t need. We’re gonna have to make the ones we do need work better and cost less.”
• Of course, he’ll soon be “asking folks who are making more than a quarter million dollars a year to go back to the tax rate they were paying in the 1990s before the Bush tax cuts.”
• And in a way of attempting to head off at the pass any criticisms that there’s no way the U.S. can afford all this, he says supporters should tell skeptics that ending the war will save the U.S. $10 billion a month.

The AP’s Calvin Woodward took a look at Obama’s assertion that he’s “offered spending cuts above and beyond” what he’s pledging to spend, and he concluded that’s “accepted only by his partisans. His vow to save money by ‘eliminating programs that don’t work’ masks his failure throughout the campaign to specify what those programs are — beyond the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.”

Even accepting the savings Obama pledges to bring, the bi-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget says Obama will add a net $628 billion to the deficit over the course of his term.

– Jake Tapper and Sunlen Miller @ Political Punch.

YouTube’s Top Election Video Is Iraq War Vet’s McCain Endorsement

The video, titled ‘Dear Mr. Obama,’ has been viewed more than 11 million times!

If the election came down to YouTube viewers, a pro-John McCain video would be the winner.

A video of an Iraq veteran giving his endorsement to McCain is the site’s most watched election video, with 11 million views, according to the BBC, which calls it “short, simple and powerful.”

The video opens with a young man with close-cropped hair standing outside in casual clothes next to an American flag.

“Dear Mr. Obama,” he says, and describes himself as an Iraq war veteran, whose yearlong tour convinced him that Iraqis are “just like us” in seeking freedom.

“Are they better off today than they were in 2002? You bet,” he says.

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BTW I’m Voting For Mccain / Palin

Watch this bring out the Obama-bot hate machine!

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John McCain – Hero, Maverick & Friend of Israel

John McCain – Hero, Maverick, Friend of the Jewish people.

His 22 year Senate record of unwavering support for Israel is unmatched. He believes that Jerusalem was, is and must always be the capitol of Israel.

Barack Obama is a untested, wavering and dangerous gamble for all who understand Israel is a needed and trusted friend of America. Obama’s flirtation with radical Muslims and Leftists makes him an unthinkable choice, an abomination to anyone who supports Israel and understands the complex nature of the Middle East.

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Obama – Lacking the Experience and Judgment to Lead

Obama – Lacking the Experience and Judgment to Lead:Obama is a dangerously inexperienced Euro-Socialist that will endanger Israel.

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Strike Back At Those So-Called Election Experts!

I’ve been encouraging people for years, suggesting to even strangers in the supermarket, that if a pollster calls them, or encounters them in person, to flat-out lie to them.  Same for those pesky “exit surveys” that seek to strip away our right to confidentiality in voting.

I have been quite active and methodical about this, as have several dozen of my friends across the nation. In blogs, in speeches, emails and posts on countless thousands of wiki’s and boards.

It was some election, I can no longer remember which one, where early reports of East Coast voting was blamed on lessening the turnout in California. It really pissed me off, I remember that, at least.

Since then, I have actively recruited friends and strangers to my cause, to drive the pollsters out of business! I know I won’t succeed, but I still harbor the hope of really messing with them.

It’s still not too late for you to join in.  All you have to do is answer your phone, or stop and talk with a pollster on the street.  If you’re for McCain, say you are a strong Obama booster.  If you are for Obama, tell them you support McCain.  On voting day, seek out exit polling operatives, make a beeline towards them, and fill their mushy heads will all the nonsense you can manage without cracking up.

Then sit like I do, election night, and have the time of your life watching the furrowed brows, the sweaty foreheads of the pundits, trying to explain away what is happening versus what they all assured us was going to.  It would serve them right, those nattering nabobs of sage election-night advice, who never once manage to shut up. 

What do you think?

Compare

One trillion in new spending, and even higher taxes?

Pie-in-the-sky Socialism, or an experienced leader to guide us out of this recession?

Obama is too risky, the stakes are too high.

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Obama’s Aunt Found Living in Rundown Boston Public Housing!

From The Times of London, a heart-warming story of family, or at least what it means to be part of millionaire Barack Obama’s family….

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Barack Obama has lived one version of the American dream that has taken him to the steps of the White House. But a few miles from where the Democratic presidential candidate studied at Harvard, his Kenyan aunt and uncle, immigrants living in modest circumstances in Boston, have a contrasting American story.

Zeituni Onyango, the aunt so affectionately described in Obama’s best-selling memoir “Dreams From My Father,” lives in a disabled-access flat on a rundown public housing estate in South Boston.

A second relative believed to be the long-lost “Uncle Omar” described in the book was beaten by armed robbers with a “sawed-off rifle” while working in a corner shop in the Dorchester area of the city. He was later evicted from his one-bedroom apartment for failing to pay $2,324.20 in bills, according to the Boston Housing Court, in spite of the fact Barack Obama is a millionaire and touts family.

The U.S. press has repeatedly rehearsed Obama’s extraordinary odyssey, but the other side of the family’s American experience has only been revealed in parts. Just across town from where Obama made history as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review, some of his closest blood relatives have confronted the harshness of immigrant life in America.

Speaking outside her home in Flaherty Way, South Boston, on Tuesday, Onyango, 56, confirmed she was the “Auntie Zeituni” in Obama’s memoir. She declined to answer most other questions about her relationship with the presidential contender until after the November 4 election. She was warned to keep silent.

“I can’t talk about it, I just pray for him, that’s all,” she said, adding: “After the 4th, I can talk to anyone.”

The Times could not determine their immigration status and an official at Boston City Hall said that Ms Onyango was a resident of Flaherty Way but not registered to vote on the electoral roll. However, that Ms Onyango made a contribution to the Obama campaign would indicate that she is a US citizen. Records at the Boston City Hall confirmed Zeituni Onyango’s birthdate as May 29, 1952.

It is not clear when Ms Onyango first came to the US. She said: “I have been coming to America ever since 1975. I always come and go.”

She is a frail woman who walks with the aid of a metal stick. Neighbours said that she lived alone in a ground-floor flat normally set aside for people facing physical hardship.

An Associated Press story about poor people buying lottery tickets at cheque-cashing shops, from Cambridge, Massachusetts, on May 25, 2003, quotes a Zeituni Onyango whom it describes as out of work and without much money. “It’s like when I feel luck might fall I do that, like manna might come from Heaven. That’s when I buy it,” she told AP.

A staff member at the Boston Housing Authority office, 50 yards from her house, said Ms Onynango had been a volunteer resident health advocate between December 2007 and August this year. She worked six hours a week for a small stipend. Records show she used the housing authority’s address to make her campaign contribution.

Ms Onyango is also listed on the internet as a volunteer with Experience Corps, a programme in which adults over 55 mentor children in their communities. The “former computer systems co-ordinator” tells the group’s online newsletter: “I felt that I should help the children in my community. I love people and enjoy interacting with them . . . Also, I was idle, and this was a chance to get involved.”

A public record search lists an “O. Onyango Obama”, born on June 3, 1944, at 24 Colgate Road whose name matches that of the “Uncle Omar” in Dreams from My Father.

Nelson Ochieng, a cousin of Mr Obama who lives in the Kenyan city of Kisumu, near the family village of Kogelo, said that Omar had changed his first name after moving to the US. “Before he went to America we all knew him as Omar, but he dropped that bit, changing it to Obama Onyango, because he said he preferred his African name,” he said. Gail Greenberger, the landlady who bought the four-storey brick block of flats at a foreclosure sale in 1994, knew her tenant, however, by the name Obama Onyango. “We used to call him ‘Oh-bummer!’. That is how I pronounced Obama in 2000,” she said.

Ms Greenberger said she inherited him with the building but was forced to evict him in 2000 for nonpayment of his rent of about $500 a month. “I remember him being decent but I think he lost his job. When they lose their job, they just stop paying rent. He did not even go to court. He bolted from the apartment,” she said. Records of Boston Housing Court show a “summary process” was executed against Mr Onyango on February 23, 2000, for unpaid rent of $2,324.70.

Mr Onyango was a business partner in a “convenience store” called the Wells Market at 1760 Dorchester Avenue, now a Hispanic bodega, or grocery. Records list him as the treasurer of the corporation, which was set up without his name in 1992 and involuntarily wound up in 2007 after failing to file annual reports since 1997.

In 1994 Obama Onyango was attacked in an armed robbery at the Wells Market, the Boston Herald reported. According to a police report, two masked black males entered the store around 9.30pm on June 7, 1994, and “did assault and beat the victim, and did rob victim of an undetermined amount of US currency. Suspects were believed to be armed with a ‘sawed-off’ rifle, and did flee the area on foot .”

Read the full, 3 page article HERE.

AP FACT CHECK: Obama “Infomercial” Avoids Budget Realities

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was less than upfront in his half-hour commercial Wednesday night about the costs of his programs and the crushing budget pressures he would face in office.

Obama’s assertion that “I’ve offered spending cuts above and beyond” the expense of his promises is accepted only by his partisans. His vow to save money by “eliminating programs that don’t work” masks his failure throughout the campaign to specify what those programs are — beyond the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

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A sampling of what voters heard in the ad, and what he didn’t tell them:

THE SPIN: “That’s why my health care plan includes improving information technology, requires coverage for preventive care and pre-existing conditions and lowers health care costs for the typical family by $2,500 a year.”

THE FACTS: His plan does not lower premiums by $2,500, or any set amount. Obama hopes that by spending $50 billion over five years on electronic medical records and by improving access to proven disease management programs, among other steps, consumers will end up saving money. He uses an optimistic analysis to suggest cost reductions in national health care spending could amount to the equivalent of $2,500 for a family of four. Many economists are skeptical those savings can be achieved, but even if they are, it’s not a certainty that every dollar would be passed on to consumers in the form of lower premiums.

THE SPIN: “I also believe every American has a right to affordable health care.”

THE FACTS: That belief should not be confused with a guarantee of health coverage for all. He makes no such promise. Obama hinted as much in the ad when he said about the problem of the uninsured: “I want to start doing something about it.” He would mandate coverage for children but not adults. His program is aimed at making insurance more affordable by offering the choice of government-subsidized coverage similar to that in a plan for federal employees and other steps, including requiring larger employers to share costs of insuring workers.

THE SPIN: “I’ve offered spending cuts above and beyond their cost.”

THE FACTS: Independent analysts say Obama would deepen the deficit. The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates Obama’s policy proposals would add a net $428 billion to the deficit over four years — and that analysis accepts the savings he claims will come from some unspecified “spending cuts“. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, whose other findings have been quoted approvingly by the Obama campaign, says: “Both John McCain and Barack Obama have proposed tax plans that would substantially increase the national debt over the next 10 years.” The analysis goes on to say: “Neither candidate’s plan would significantly increase economic growth unless offset by spending cuts or tax increases that the campaigns have not specified.”

THE SPIN: “Here’s what I’ll do. Cut taxes for every working family making less than $200,000 a year. Give businesses a tax credit for every new employee that they hire right here in the U.S. over the next two years and eliminate tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. Help homeowners who are making a good faith effort to pay their mortgages, by freezing foreclosures for 90 days. And just like after 9-11, we’ll provide low-cost loans to help small businesses pay their workers and keep their doors open. “

THE FACTS: His proposals — the tax cuts, the low-cost loans, the $15 billion a year he promises for alternative energy, and more — cost money, and the country could be facing a record $1 trillion deficit next year. Indeed, Obama recently acknowledged — although not in his commercial – that: “The next president will have to scale back his agenda and some of his proposals.”

Associated Press Fact Check

West Hollywood: Sarah Palin Effigy Taken Down

A California Gay couple who hung an effigy of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin from a noose off the side of their house have removed the display.

The hanging mannequin generated nationwide outrage, as well as an appeal from the mayor of West Hollywood, who asked them to take it down.

Chad-Michael Morrisette, the man who set up the mannequin as part of a Halloween display, told the Los Angeles Times that he decided to remove the Palin mannequin on Wednesday after meeting with West Hollywood mayor Jeffrey Prang.

Earlier in the day, about half a dozen of Morrisette’s neighbors had protested the display and tried to block it from the view of passing motorists, according to Steve Whitmore, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

Would You….

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Confessions From The Obama Campaign Trail: Reporter Finds Empty Suit

Covering Obama 18 hours a day — in and out of the limelight — offers few glimpses of his true self. When in robo-candidate mode, he can be sort of dull, a Los Angles Times reporter finds.

By Peter Nicholas
October 28, 2008

One of the things we in the press try to do is tell politicians how they’ve screwed up. So it was a rare instance when I told Barack Obama to his face that I was the one who’d made the mistake.

Let me explain. For the last year and a half I’ve covered the presidential race, focusing first on Hillary Clinton, then moving over to Obama.

After Clinton’s defeat in the Iowa caucuses, she decided she needed an emergency reinvention. She began mixing with reporters, sipping a glass of wine late at night in the aisle of her campaign plane and unburdening herself about the state of the race. As her prospects dimmed, her accessibility grew. Sometimes she was off the record, but you can’t say she wasn’t fun.

Not so with Obama. One of the striking ironies is that a man who draws tens of thousands of people to his rallies, whose charisma is likened to that of John F. Kennedy, can be sort of a bore.

Discipline is essential for candidates who want to drive home a consistent message, or avoid the self-sabotage that comes with a careless answer. A steely perseverance helps explain why Obama at this point stands a better than even chance of becoming the 44th president. But when you’re exposed to the guy 18 hours a day, it’s a bit maddening. You want him to loosen up.

I’ve watched Obama demonstrate a soccer kick to his daughter in Chicago; devour a cheesesteak in Philly; navigate a roller rink in Indiana; drive a bumper car; and catapult 125 feet in the air on an amusement-park ride called “Big Ben.” He’s done it all with dogged professionalism, but with little show of spontaneity. After all this time with him, I still can’t say with certainty who he is.

A couple of images from the long campaign stay with me.

One was watching Obama enter an apartment building near his Chicago home for a morning workout. He wore dark sweats, a gray T-shirt and a baseball cap pulled low over his forehead. In those few seconds it took him to walk from the car to the building, with his head down, thin and solitary, he looked nothing like the adored politician presiding over rallies. It was a reminder that behind the hype and the TV ads is this one rather vulnerable-looking guy. And in that moment came the question: Is he really ready to take over the toughest job on the planet?

The other was a hot summer afternoon in Iowa. Obama was flipping burgers at a backyard barbecue, in what the campaign hoped would be an exquisite photo opportunity. A fly began circling his head. Then more flies. Pretty soon flies were swarming him, the burgers — everything. It was awful to watch. But in rhythmic fashion he began waving them off with his hand. He scooped up the burgers and headed back to the picnic table, as if nothing had gone wrong. That small episode told me something about Obama’s temperament. I would have wanted to fling the grill over the fence in frustration.

Both impressions came from a distance. A cordon of aides ensures nothing more intimate is available to the traveling press.

Once I stood a few feet from him as he fielded questions in the center aisle of his plane. Press aide Linda Douglass stood directly behind him, monitoring the Q&A. After a bit, Douglass discreetly put her hand on his lower back. He ignored it. She did it again, pressing harder. This time, Obama said he had to go.

Of course, at Obama’s level, there’s no such thing as harmless chatter. There’s a pattern to these moments. Obama comes to the back of the plane. Light banter ensues, usually about Obama’s favorite baseball team, the White Sox. Then a reporter slowly pulls out a tape recorder and turns it on. Obama notices. Now he’s more cautious. More tape recorders pop up, and pretty soon we’re back to a recitation of his stump speech.

The chances to gain insights into his character were like rare mutations in the evolution of his campaign.

One day in July, I was the pool reporter at an event in Zanesville, Ohio, meaning I was responsible for writing up for the rest of the press corps Obama’s visit to a ministry that was tutoring young students. Again kept at a distance, I watched as Obama chatted with the kids. One boy approached him and held out his fist. Obama drew back. “If I start that . . .” he said. From where I stood, it looked like he was refusing a request for a fist bump — a gesture that had gotten a lot of attention after Obama fist-bumped his wife at a campaign event the month before. A Fox News host had even suggested that it was a “terrorist fist jab.” If Obama was rolling out a no-fist-bump policy, that seemed worth mentioning.

The pool report quickly got around.

Maureen Dowd of the New York Times cited the episode in her column. Obama complained to an aide that it hadn’t happened that way. He was right. A videotape of the conversation would later show the boy was merely asking Obama to autograph his hand.

We heard Obama was steamed. On the plane later, Obama was working his way up the aisle, past reporters. He got to me.

It was no one’s fault but mine, so I told him: “Senator, I was the one who wrote the flawed pool report.” I wanted him to know that, but I was also curious to see how he would react. He looked at me and said he appreciated that I had ‘fessed up. Changing the subject, he asked me about my hat. I wear a big floppy hat on sunny days, and he had seen it at an outdoor news conference.

“I use it to block the sun,” I said.

Does the brim cover your ears? Obama asked.

“Well, my ears,” I said.

He drew back and laughed. You’re making fun of my ears?! he said.

I told him our family has had medical issues with the sun. He quietly took that in. I wasn’t expecting any empathy — and didn’t need any — but I felt surprised nonetheless that he evinced little or no interest. It seemed like a chance to make a human connection, if he wanted one.

In any case, I held out my fist. He looked quizzically at it for a second, then realized what I was doing.

“That’s what I’m talking about!” he said. We fist-bumped, and he moved on. The animation he showed in that instant surprised me; it doesn’t seem that he lets himself laugh much.

There was another moment not long ago when I tried to wrest from Obama some display of personality.

Amy Chozick, a Wall Street Journal reporter, was wearing a new engagement ring. I told Obama’s staff members they should send him back to take a look. A few minutes before takeoff my seatmate, Jeff Zeleny of the New York Times, nudged me: “He’s coming back.” I looked up and there he was, hovering over Chozick, clucking about her “rock.”

He turned to our row. Just for fun and to see what he might say, I held out the $200 wedding ring I’d purchased four years ago at a chain jewelry store in a Sacramento mall.

What do you think of this ring, Senator? I asked.

He looked at it for a few beats. No reaction. He was back in robo-candidate mode.

Zeleny then asked him about a recent debate. Obama chided him for asking the question, then eased back to his seat at the front of the plane without answering. I later asked Douglass if Obama understood I was joking. She assured me he did.

First Clinton, then John McCain made the argument that Obama is someone we don’t really know. Obama’s supporters counter that we have his record in the U.S. and Illinois senates (but of course the Illinois Senate records are now missing, or don’t exist), two memoirs that reveal his inner thinking and a vast trove of staged, controlled public speaking.

Ironically, those of us who were sent out to take his measure in person can’t offer much help in answering who he is, or if he is ready. The barriers set in place between us and him were just too great.

Former ACORN Staffer Testifies Group Received Donor Lists From Obama Campaign

A former staffer for an affiliate of the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now testified today that the organization was provided a “donor list” from the presidential campaign of Barack Obama in late 2007 for fundraising efforts.

Anita Moncrief, a former Washington, D.C. staffer for Project Vote, which she described as a sister organization of ACORN, said her supervisor told her the list of campaign contributors came from the Obama campaign. Moncrief said she has a copy of a “development plan” that outlines how Obama contributors who had “maxed out” under federal contribution limits would be targeted to give to Project Vote, and that it was her job to identify such contributors.

ACORN officials have said Moncrief was fired from Project Vote and that she is not a credible witness. Moncrief testified that ACORN and Project Vote were virtually identical.

A Republican lawyer submitted a computer disk of the Obama database to Commonwealth Court Judge Robert Simpson.

Moncrief, whom Project Vote fired earlier this year, testified for more than two hours during a hearing on a Pennsylvania Republican Party lawsuit aimed at curbing voter fraud in Tuesday’s general election.

An Obama campaign spokeswoman last week had said the campaign has “no ties” to ACORN.

Moncrief, 29, who now lives in Virginia, also said that she had taken a call from an Obama campaign worker inquiring whether it was the same organization Obama had worked with in the 1990’s.

Moncrief said she had received repeated warnings to “back off” from testifying today by people she knows at ACORN.

“I thought it was powerful testimony. She took a great personal risk,” said Heather Heidelbaugh, an attorney representing the state GOP.

The lawsuit against ACORN and its affiliates, as well as Secretary of the Commonwealth Pedro Cortes, asks the court for a preliminary injunction. GOP lawyers want the court to force ACORN to make its voter database available and require voter education efforts. The Republicans also want the Department of State to make its voter registration database more readily available to counties. A Department of State lawyer has said Pennsylvania is already doing so.

Moncrief said she does not have a vendetta against ACORN.

“I do not think it is a bad organization,” she said. Moncrief said she came forward and contacted Heidelbaugh because she believes low-income vote canvassers were not trained and then were “thrown under the bus”– facing criminal prosecution — for frauduent registrations. She said there were quotas of voter registration forms for workers and that some were fired for not meeting them.

“The (voter) cards are tied to money. The more cards you get the more money you get,” Moncrief said.

Obama Attacks Founding Fathers & Constitution

Barely noticed in the furor over Barack Obama’s remarks dealing with income re-distribution was the Illinois Democrat’s assault on the Founding Fathers and the Constitution they created.  Said Obama:

“To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical.”

What followed that remark was a screed that should frighten the daylights out of any American who understands that the Constitution is the sole and most important safeguard of our rights and our liberties. Without it we are subjects, not citizens.

According to Obama:

If the Constitution didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and [the] Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties.

The document, he argued, “Says what the states can’t do to you, says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf.”

That remark shows a shocking ignorance of the purpose of the United States Constitution. Writing in National Review, Bill Whittle explained, “The entire purpose of the Constitution was to limit government.”

And that’s the last thing Barack Obama, a devout worshiper at the shrine of Big Brother government, wants to do. It would stop him from taking your money and giving it to someone else.

Obama’s remarks would have sent shivers up the spine of Thomas Jefferson, et al. And they should do the same to all thinking Americans who know that without the Constitution as framed by the Founding Fathers to protect our rights and liberties, we would be at the mercy of a powerful and unrestrained Federal Government ruled by power-hungry men like Barack Obama, and not by law.

Maybe It’s Your Civic Duty Not to Vote?

Should Uninformed Voters Be Casting Their Vote on Nov. 4?

By JOHN STOSSEL

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We keep hearing how important it is for everyone to vote and that voting is our civic duty.

Celebrities like Christina Aguilera, Leonardo DiCaprio, Diddy and Dave Matthews urge everyone to get out and vote. And to help people vote, voter registration groups such as HeadCount deploy volunteers to sign people up.

HeadCount focuses on registering young people at rock concerts and music festivals around the country. During the concerts, famous musicians such as Eddie Vedder and Jack Johnson implore their fans to sign up to vote. Marc Brownstein, the bassist for the band The Disco Biscuits and a co-founder of HeadCount, tells fans to “please participate this year by casting your vote!”

Brownstein and a friend, Andy Bernstein, co-founded HeadCount in 2004.

“We do this because we want the kids to be a part of the political process,” Brownstein said.

Bernstein added, “We registered over 100,000 people. … It is so imperative that this generation’s voice is heard. And they are being heard.”

But are these get-out-the-vote drives entirely a good thing? “20/20″ asked some newly registered young people some basic questions about our government.

Some people were knowledgeable. “There are two senators from each state, making a total of 100,” one young voter said. Another knew that “the Bill of Rights is the first 10 amendments to the Constitution.”

But many of the young voters didn’t seem very informed. Some didn’t know how many states are in the U.S. or how many senators there are. Few could explain Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling upholding abortion rights.

“Roe v. Wade is segregation maybe?” one new voter guessed.

Another asked: “Was Roe v. Wade where we declared bankruptcy?” And still another wondered, “That was about a black person and a white person?”

Brownstein said, “There’s a lot of uninformed voters out there.”

So should those uninformed voters just stay home?

“It’s an argument that really, really smacks against everything we hold dear as Americans,” Bernstein said.

“Democracy is not about taking … the most educated portion of the society and having them decide,” Brownstein said.

But could these voters’ civic duty be to not vote, because they know very little?

“We don’t believe it’s their civic duty not to vote. We’re out there telling them that it is their civic duty to vote,” Brownstein said.

Maybe it’s not fair to pick on kids at a rock concert. So “20/20″ moved on to our nation’s capital and spoke to prospective voters on the Washington Mall. Certainly people there will know more, won’t they?

Few recognized Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, yet almost everyone recognized television's Judge Judy

People were shown some pictures of prominent Americans, like John McCain and Barack Obama. Everyone recognized Obama and McCain. And maybe half the people knew who Sarah Palin was. But Joe Biden? Most didn’t recognize the Democratic vice presidential nominee. Few recognized Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, yet almost everyone recognized television’s Judge Judy.

“Maybe 75 percent of people can name the vice president. … The public’s knowledge of politics is shockingly low,” economist Bryan Caplan said.

In his book “The Myth of the Rational Voter,” Caplan argues that people who know little about our government ought to stay home on Election Day.

But aren’t Americans always told it’s their civic duty to vote?

“This is very much like saying, ‘It’s our civic duty to give surgery advice,’” Caplan said. “Now, we like to think that political issues are much less complicated than brain surgery, but many of them are pretty hard. If someone doesn’t know what he’s talking about, it really is better if they say, ‘Look, I’m just gonna leave this in wiser hands.’”

But isn’t it elitist to say only some people should vote?

“Is it elitist to say only some people should do brain surgery?” Caplan said. “The bottom line is, if you don’t know what you’re doing, you are not doing the country a favor by voting.”

Voting is serious business. Democracy works best when people educate themselves. So maybe instead of telling people things like “Rock the Vote,” these groups should say “Rock or Vote.”

2 Dumb Slate Staffers Split With Wiser Colleagues On Obama Vote!!

Andrew Malcom of the L.A. Times, (You know the newspaper so in the tank for Obama it is hiding a video of Obama at a Jew-bashing dinner attended by those people he hardly knows, Rashid Khalidi, William Ayers and his fellow terrorist wife, Bernadette Dohrn) reports, perhaps mocks Slate:

One writer has broken ranks with Slate’s slate of writers and intends to vote for John McCain! The Republican senator from Arizona!

No, really. We’re serious here.

And one other Slate writer intends to vote for Bob Barr! The Libertarian former Republican representative from Georgia!

Not just because Bob has a permit to carry a concealed weapon. But because the editor-at-large, Jack Shafer, explains he has chosen the Libertarian candidate ever since he started voting in 1972.

Jack admits there have been “a long line of chowderheads” atop the Libertarian ticket. But he feels that party comes closest to his ideal of limited government, free markets and noninterventionist foreign policy.

The rebel Republican over at Slate is Rachael Larimore, the deputy managing editor and copy chief, who’s a lifelong moderate GOP voter who admires McCain, is incapable of generating a ton of hate for that known Satan George W. Bush and hopes that a Democratic victory will help recharge the GOP in the long run for the benefit of our two-party system.

That leaves only 55 other Slate staffers who chose to announce their fealty to the Illinois fellow for a variety of reasons you can read for yourself here.

Editor David Plotz describes the political announcements as a sign of openness and because he, like his predecessors, says he does not believe that how writers write politically is affected by how writers think politically.

So rest assured the online vote at Slate has absolutely nothing to do with all this late-race trumped up empty chatter over media bias in favor of the handsome, eloquent Democrat with the darling family running against the grumpy old pilot who can’t use a BlackBerry or play tennis because his arms were allegedly broken so often and then shocked the media by picking as his running mate a Washington outsider, a non-Democrat female no less, who’s so opposed to abortion she didn’t get one herself.

That’s just widespread biased hooey. Forget about it because we say to.

–Andrew Malcolm

L.A. Times Still Sweeping Obama “Jew Bash” Video Under The Rug

From the Los Angeles Times: “According to Wallsten the evening not surprisingly, turned into a classic Jew-bash:“During the dinner a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, “then you will never see a day of peace.”

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Obama Affinity to Marxists Dates Back to College Days

Barack Obama shrugs off charges of socialism, but noted in his own memoir that he carefully chose Marxist professors as friends in college.

Barack Obama laughs off charges of socialism. Joe Biden scoffs at references to Marxism. Both men shrug off accusations of liberalism.

But Obama himself acknowledges that he was drawn to socialists and even Marxists as a college student. He continued to associate with Marxists later in life, even choosing to launch his political career in the living room of a self-described Marxist, William Ayers, in 1995, when Obama was 34.

By Bill Sammon

.Obama’s affinity for Marxists began when he attended Occidental College in Los Angeles.

To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully,” the Democratic presidential candidate wrote in his memoir, Dreams From My Father. “The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists.”

Obama’s interest in leftist politics continued after he transferred to Columbia University in New York. He lived on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, venturing to the East Village for what he called “the socialist conferences I sometimes attended at Cooper Union.”

After graduating from Columbia in 1983, Obama spent a year working for a consulting firm and then went to work for what he described as “a Ralph Nader offshoot” in Harlem.

In search of some inspiration, I went to hear Kwame Toure, formerly Stokely Carmichael of Black Panther fame, speak at Columbia,” Obama wrote in “Dreams,” which he published in 1995. “At the entrance to the auditorium, two women, one black, one Asian, were selling Marxist literature.”

Obama supporters point out that plenty of Americans flirt with radical ideologies in college, only to join the political mainstream later in life. But Obama, who made a point of noting how “carefully” he chose his friends in college, also chose to launch his political career in the Chicago living room of Ayers, a domestic terrorist who in 2002 proclaimed: “I am a Marxist.”

German philosopher Karl Marx, author of "The Communist Manifesto," advocated redistributing wealth in order to achieve a classless society.

Obama has been widely criticized for choosing the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, an anti-American firebrand, as his pastor. Wright is a purveyor of black liberation theology, which analysts say is based in part on Marxist ideas.

Few political observers go so far as to accuse Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, of being a Marxist. But Republican John McCain has been accusing Obama of espousing socialism ever since the Democrat told an Ohio plumber named Joe earlier this month that he wanted to “spread the wealth around.”

Obama’s running mate, Biden, recently contradicted his boss, saying: “He is not spreading the wealth around.” The remark came as Biden was answering a question from a TV anchor who asked: “How is Senator Obama not being a Marxist if he intends to spread the wealth around?”

“Are you joking? Is this a joke? Or is that a real question?” an incredulous Biden shot back. “It’s a ridiculous comparison.”

But the debate intensified Monday with the surfacing of a 2001 radio interview in which Obama lamented the Supreme Court’s inability to enact “redistribution of wealth” — a key tenet of socialism. On Tuesday, McCain said Obama aspires to become “Redistributionist-in-Chief.”

Obama has managed to cultivate the image of a political moderate in spite of his consistently liberal voting record. In 2006, he published a second memoir, “The Audacity of Hope,” that leaves little doubt about his adherence to the left.

The arguments of liberals are more often grounded in reason and fact,” Obama wrote in “Audacity.” “Much of what I absorbed from the sixties was filtered through my mother, who to the end of her life would proudly proclaim herself an unreconstructed liberal.”

A more accurate Obama logo

National Journal magazine ranked Obama as the most liberal member of the Senate. The publication is far from conservative, employing such journalists as Linda Douglass, who resigned in May to become Obama’s traveling press secretary.

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Bill Sammon is the Washington deputy managing editor for FOX News Channel.

McCain Fact Versus Obama Fiction

Barack Obama and Joe Biden have consistently lied to Americans about John McCain’s plan. Their claims have failed every fact check from CBS to the Washington Post. John McCain is not going to raise taxes on middle class families.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the only ones in this race that plan to raise taxes. Their recent attacks have become increasingly misleading. Read the facts below to learn the truth about the McCain-Palin Health Care Plan.

The Truth about the McCain-Palin Health Care Plan

Barack Obama And Joe Biden Have Consistently Lied To Americans About John McCain’s Plan. Their claims have failed every fact-check – from CBS to the Washington Post. John McCain is not going to raise taxes on middle class families. Barack Obama and Joe Biden are the only ones in this race that plan to raise taxes.

OBAMA FICTION

John McCain Will Tax Health Care Benefits For The First Time And Will Be the Largest Middle Class Tax Increase In History.

THE FACTS

This Obama charge is a blatant mischaracterization of the McCain Health Plan. It only focuses on the fact that the value of the employer provided insurance will now show up as additional income for the employees – what he fails to mention – is that John McCain’s generous refundable tax credit ($5,000 for families and $2,500 for individuals) will not only shield millions of families from a tax increase but will actually give them MORE dollars to invest in their health care needs.

The McCain Plan DOES NOT tax:

• Premiums paid by families and individuals
• Employers for providing health care coverage
• Medical expenses like the cost of a procedure or medication
• Insurance claims

Approach Supported By Obama’s Own Advisor: This is an approach supported by Barack Obama’s own Senior Economic Advisor Jason Furman who wrote that “we could scrap the current deduction altogether and replace it with progressive tax credits that, together with other changes, would ensure that every American has affordable health insurance.”

Better Than “Members of Congress”: Under the McCain Plan, your employer can provide you with health insurance as good as a “Member of Congress” (approximately $12,000), and you would pay no  more in taxes – regardless of your tax bracket.  In fact, you would have additional money left over from the McCain tax credit to put in a health savings account.

Where Is The Middle-Class “Tax Increase”? If you or your family is in the 28% bracket, with an income of $180,000, you could receive employer provided health insurance even better than a Member of Congress, with a cost of almost $18,000, with no increase in taxes. Even the liberal leaning Tax Policy Center, agrees that the McCain proposals will result in a “net tax benefit” of more than $1,200 for an average tax payer. A recent Lewin Group study estimated savings of more than $1,400 per American family – almost three times the savings as under the Obama plan.

OBAMA FICTION
The McCain Plan Will Reduce Medicare Spending By Billions By “Cutting Benefits, Eligibility or Both.”

THE FACTS
John McCain believes that we can achieve savings in Medicare without reducing benefits or eligibility. He has proposed common-sense reforms that will not only put Medicare on a path of financial stability but ensure access to quality care for millions of Americans. Some of the policies proposed by the McCain plan include:

• Promote payment reform that allows us to move away from the current fragmented and volume-based service to a system which rewards coordinated and quality focused care.
• Eliminate Medicare fraud and abuse to ensure that nearly $60 billion a year, almost 10 percent of total Medicare spending, that goes to line the pocket of criminals instead of providing quality care for seniors.
• Ensure that drug premiums for the wealthiest Americans are not being subsidized by the middle class.
• Promote a new generation of treatment models that better manage chronic care conditions while rewarding prevention and wellness.
• Greater use of Health IT and medical homes to promote greater co-ordination of care.
• Reduce drug costs by allowing greater use of generics (including bio-generics).

The Obama Spin:  If some of the proposals above sound familiar to Senator Obama’s proposals including – better managing chronic care diseases, greater use of health IT, promoting prevention and greater use of generic drugs – because they are. Only the liberal media and the Obama campaign would characterize similar proposals as “savings” in the their plan and “cutting benefits, eligibility or both” in the McCain plan.

OBAMA FICTION
John McCain Will Tax Health Care Benefits For The First Time And Send The Money Straight To The Insurance Companies.

THE FACTS
Another desperate attack by the Obama campaign. Here is what they purposefully fail to mention – the credit goes to the insurance company that the American family chooses to get coverage from, anywhere in the nation. The power of choice lies with the family – not government bureaucrats or insurance companies.

• Putting Families In Charge: Under the McCain Plan American families will not only decide where the tax credit should be directed for their coverage needs but any additional money left over after purchasing coverage will be controlled by the family in a portable health savings account. Ridiculing this line of strange attack, The Associated Press stated, “Of course it would, because it’s meant to pay for insurance. That’s like saying money for a car loan will go straight to the car dealer.”
• Obama Criticizing His Own Approach: Most importantly, Senator Obama is criticizing an approach that is used by his own HOPE credits – where tax payer money simply goes from the federal government to colleges.

OBAMA FICTION
Americans With Pre-Existing Condition Under The McCain Plan Will Not Find Coverage.

THE FACTS
John McCain believes that no American should be denied access to quality and affordable coverage simply because of a pre-existing condition. As President, John McCain will work with governors to develop a best practice model that states can follow – a Guaranteed Access Plan or GAP – that would reflect the best experience of the states to ensure these patients have access to health coverage. There would be reasonable limits on premiums, and assistance would be available for Americans below a certain income level.

OBAMA FICTION
The McCain Health Plan Will Damage Employer Provided Insurance For Millions of Americans.

THE FACTS
The McCain health plan builds on the employer-based system. Employers will have the same incentive to provide health insurance as they do today since they will continue to deduct the cost of health insurance they provide to employees.

• Millions With Employer Coverage Will Do Better Under The McCain Plan: Millions of American families with employer sponsored coverage in all tax brackets with the same coverage as a “Members of Congress” will now come out ahead with additional funds going into a portable health savings account. Importantly, younger and healthier employees with the McCain health care tax credit will have a bigger incentive to stay with the employers. For example, a 25-year-old employee in the 25 percent tax bracket with a $2,500 tax credit could either purchase a policy in the individual market for the same amount or stay with his employer plan and receive a $5,000 policy with an additional $1,250 to invest in a portable health savings account.  Why would people choose fewer benefits for more money?

So Why Is Barack Obama Hiding Details About His Plan?

Barack Obama’s Plan Will Harm Employer Coverage
The Obama plan includes a $179 billion a year employer mandate.  The mandate requires employers to either provide “meaningful” coverage or pay a tax towards the government plan.  Faced with tough economic conditions and rising health costs this creates a clear incentive for employers to drop coverage and move families into the new government plan. A Lewin Group study which examined a similar employer mandate combined with a national plan, like the Obama plan, concluded that almost 52 million individuals would lose their private employer coverage. To maintain their competitive edge, others employers will follow – spelling the demise of the employer coverage system.

Barack Obama’s Plan Continues The Push Toward Government-Run Healthcare
The Obama plan will create a brand new government-run health plan at the cost of $243 billion a year – a financial burden of more than $3,000 a year on American families.

Barack Obama’s Plan Will Damage Private Coverage
The government-run plan will have a clear advantage over private insurance since it will be subsidized by American taxpayers. A recent analysis of both plans by the nonpartisan CATO Institute concluded that the Obama government-run plan will be able to “keep its premiums artificially low…since it can turn to the U.S. Treasury to cover any shortfalls” resulting in “undercutting the private market.” According to Wall Street Journal, the goal of the Obama plan “…like HillaryCare in the 1990s, is to displace current private coverage and switch people to the default government option.”

Gun Ban Obama….

The NRA has a new ad out featuring Chuck Norris. The NRA has committed to spending north of $10 million this season and has put out a variety of ads showing Senator Obama’s gun record. Their newest doesn’t mention Obama, though it does encourage voters to know the views of the candidates on the Second Amendment.

Meghan Kelly Rips Obama’s Bill Burton A New One!

Meghan Kelly lets the Obama-bots have it!

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Obama’s Education Groups Funded Controversial Radical Organizations Tax Returns Show

Barack Obama’s boards gave tens of thousands to ACORN and more than $1 million to racially charged organizations, a study of tax returns shows.

The Annenberg Challenge and the Woods Fund of Chicago funded numerous controversial groups while Barack Obama served on their boards between 1995 and 2002, an analysis of their tax returns shows.

In 2001, when Obama was a part-time director of The Woods Fund of Chicago, it gave $75,000 to ACORN, the voter registration group now under investigation for voter fraud in 12 states.

The Woods Fund also gave $6,000 to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Trinity United Church of Christ, which Obama attended. The reason for the donation to the church is unclear — it is simply listed as “for special purposes” in the group’s IRS tax form.

It gave a further $60,000 to the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University, which was founded and run by Bernardine Dohrn, the wife of domestic terrorist William Ayers and, with her husband, a former member of the 1960s radical group the Weather Underground.

Other controversial donations that year included $50,000 to the Small Schools Network — which was founded by Ayers and run by Michael Klonsky, a friend of Ayers’ and the former chairman of the Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist), an offshoot of the 1960s radical group Students for a Democratic Society — and $40,000 to the Arab American Action Network, which critics have accused of being anti-Semitic.

The Woods Fund did not respond to questions about the funding.

When Obama co-chaired the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, which calls itself “a public-private partnership improving education for 1.5 million urban and rural public school students,” it gave to some of the same groups — partnering with ACORN to manage funding for schools and giving over $1 million to the Small Schools Network.

It also gave nearly $1 million to a group called the South Shore African Village Collaborative, whose goals, according to Annenberg’s archived Web site, are “to develop more collegial relationships between teachers and principals. Professional development topics include school leadership, team building, parent and community involvement, developing thematic units, instructional strategies, strategic planning, and distance learning and teleconferencing.”

But the group mentions other goals in its grant application to the Annenberg Challenge:

“Our children need to understand the historical context of our struggles for liberation from those forces that seek to destroy us,” one page of the application reads.

Click here to see the application.

Stanley Kurtz, a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, found the collaboratives original application when going through Annenberg’s archives.

Asked to comment, Yvonne Williams-Kinnison, executive director of the collaborative’s parent group, the Coalition for Improved Education in South Shore said, “I don’t want to put more fuel on the fire. You can call us back after the election…. I don’t want to compromise the position.”

Late Afrocentrist scholars Jacob Carruthers and Asa Hilliard were both invited to give SSAVC teachers a training session, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge noted in a report, adding that the “consciousness raising session … received rave reviews, and has prepared the way for the curriculum readiness survey session.”

But Carruthers has been a controversial figure because of inflammatory statements he made in writing.

“The submission to Western civilization and its most outstanding offspring, American civilization, is, in reality, surrender to white supremacy,” Carruthers wrote in his 1999 book, “Intellectual Warfare.” “Some of us have chosen to reject the culture of our oppressors and recover our disrupted ancestral culture.”

In the book, he compared the process of blacks assimilating into American culture with rape.

“We may not be able to get our virginity back after the rape, but we do not have to marry the rapist,” Carruthers said.

Hilliard has come under fire for advocating what many consider an extreme Afrocentric curriculum.

He selected the articles for the “African-American Baseline Essays” published in 1987 and first used in the Portland, Ore., school district. The essays have been criticized for claiming, among other things, that ancient Egyptians were the first to discover manned flight and the theory of evolution.

An Obama spokesman called investigation of these ties “pathetic.”

“This is another pathetic attempt by FOX News to distract voters from the economic challenges facing this nation by patching together tenuous links to smear Barack Obama,” Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt told FOXNews.com.

“The Annenberg Challenge was a bipartisan organization dedicated to improving the performance of students and teachers in Chicago Public Schools that was funded by a Republican philanthropist who was friends with President Reagan and launched by Republican Gov. Jim Edgar.”

But Kurtz says those founders of the Annenberg Challenge would not have known the details about to whom their Chicago office — one of 18 around the country — was giving money.

“If you read Ayers’ proposal to Annenberg, it doesn’t sound radical. But if you actually read Ayers’ education writings, they are very radical indeed,” Kurtz said. “Ayers, like so many other savvy professors, knows enough not to state his actual views frankly when applying for money. But you can find the truth in his writings.”

The controversial donations make up only a small portion of the overall amount doled out by the Annenberg and Woods funds. The Woods Fund gave over $3.5 million to 115 different groups in 2001, and the Annenberg Chellenge dispensed nearly $11 million to 63 groups at its height in 1999.

There is no truth to the Obama explanation about the Annenberg Foundation being run by conservative Republicans.  While Walter Annenberg was a famous friend of Ronald Reagan, he died in 2002,  and was very ill for the last couple of years of his life, and mostly divorced from the day-to-day philanthropic details of his several billion dollar fortune. And the Annenberg Foundation is totally independent, in any event.

Most of the groups are mainstream and well respected, ranging from the Jazz Institute of Chicago to the Successful Schools Project.

But Kurtz says that this should not obscure what he describes as controversial donations.

“If John McCain had given to white supremacist groups and people said, ‘Hey, the majority of funding didn’t go to supremacist groups’ — that wouldn’t even cut the ice,” Kurtz said.

“I feel certain [Obama] knew about these radical groups,” Kurtz said. “We know that he read the applications because he made statements about the quality of proposals.”

Obama and Wright: He Never Complained Once

The preacher of hate that Obama followed for 20 years was the foundation of Obama’s power-base.Obama has told America that not once, in over twenty years of attendance, not once in hundreds of shared dinners and private meetings, did he ever hear Wright voice radical comments, damning America.

Think about it.

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Obama Bombshell – ‘Redistribution of Wealth’ Audio Uncovered!

A radio interview in which Barack Obama discussed the failure of the Supreme Court to rule on redistributing wealth in its civil rights rulings has given fresh ammunition to critics who say the Democratic presidential candidate has a socialist agenda, and is indeed a closet socialist.

The interview — conducted by Chicago Public Radio in 2001, while Obama was an Illinois state senator and a law professor at the University of Chicago — delves into whether the civil rights movement should have gone further than it did, so that when “dispossessed peoples” appealed to the high court on the right to sit at the lunch counter, they should have also appealed for the right to have someone else pay for the meal.

In the interview, Obama said the civil rights movement was victorious in some regards, but failed to create a “redistributive change” in its appeals to the Supreme Court, led at the time by Chief Justice Earl Warren. He suggested that such change should occur at the state legislature level, since the courts did not interpret the U.S. Constitution to permit such change. “The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth and sort of basic issues of political and economic justice in this society, and to that extent as radical as people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical,” Obama said in the interview, a recording of which surfaced on the Internet over the weekend. “It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as it has been interpreted.

A more accurate Obama logo

Wait! Obama views the constraints that the Founding Fathers put on government power over each of us, as something we need to “break free” of? Everyone reading this had better think again if they are leaning toward Obama! Listen to Obama’s interview…..

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“Conned by Obama Mania” – How McCain Can Win

Despite polls that show Barack Obama ahead, one McCain stratagist sees a scenerio that will give victory to John McCain. Lewis Oliver is the Chairman of McCain’s campaign in Central Florida. He says little things such as Palin on Saturday Night Live and gaffs by Joe Biden have given McCain momentum and undecideds will break towards the candidate who looks like he is going to win.

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Arrogant Obama Campaign “Cuts Off” TV Station For Asking Tough Questions!

WFTV-Channel 9’s Barbara West conducted a satellite interview with Sen. Joe Biden on Thursday. I have watched this over and over, laughing more each time at the absolutely wacky Biden, trying to decide if he was a bit drunk. What do you think?

West wondered about Sen. Barack Obama’s comment, to ‘Joe the Plumber’, about spreading the wealth. She quoted Karl Marx and asked how Obama isn’t being a Marxist with the “spreading the wealth” comment.

“Are you joking?” said Biden, who is Obama’s running mate. “No,” West said.

West later asked Biden about his comments that Obama could be tested early on as President. She wondered if the Delaware senator was saying America’s days as the world’s leading power were over.

“I don’t know who’s writing your questions,” Biden shot back.

Biden so disliked West’s line of questioning that the Obama campaign canceled a WFTV interview with Jill Biden, the candidate’s wife.

“This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election,” wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign.

McGinnis said the Biden cancellation was “a result of her husband’s experience yesterday during the satellite interview with Barbara West.”

WFTV news director Bob Jordan said, “When you get a shot to ask these candidates, you want to make the most of it. They usually give you five minutes.”

Jordan said political campaigns in general pick and choose the stations they like. And stations often pose softball questions during the satellite interviews.

“Mr. Biden didn’t like the questions,” Jordan said. “We choose not to ask softball questions.”

Jordan added, “I’m crying foul on this one.”

What do you think of this interview?  Are the reporters question really “tough” ?

Obama Has Already Drafted Inaugural Speech!

John McCain today in New Mexico:

You know what we just learned from a newspaper today that Senator Obama’s Inaugural Address is already written!

I am not making it up…I am not making it up (laughs).

An awful lot of voters are still undecided but he has decided for them.  “Well why wait it is time to move forward with my first Inaugural Address” I guess he is thinking.

My friends when I pull this thing off I have a request for my opponent: I want him to save that manuscript of his inaugural and donate it to the Smithsonian so they can put it right next to the Chicago paper that said ‘Dewey defeats Truman’.

There are ten days left in this election maybe, Barack Obama will even have his first State of the Union address ready before you head to the polls! But you know i guess i am a little old fashioned about these things — I prefer to let the voters weigh in before presuming the outcome.

What america needs is someone who will finish the race before starting the victory lap, someone who will fight to the end– and not for himself, but for his country!”

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See the Obama campaign denied New York Times story here.

UPDATE: “Ever hear of a guy named Rashid Khalidi?”

This is an update of the original post here at View From The Ridge on October 22nd, of a piece by Fox News anchor John Gibson. The updated material, from Gateway Pundit just below, tells about the Los Angeles Times actually has video of Barack Obama being at a “Jew Bash” going away party for Khalidi, which The Times will not release!

Confirmed: MSM Holds Video Of Barack Obama Attending Jew-Bash & Toasting a Former PLO Operative… Refuse to Release the Video!

LA Times writer Peter Wallsten wrote about Barack Obama’s close association with former Palestinian operative Rashid Khalidi back in April.
Wallsten discussed a dinner held back in 2003 in honor of Khalidi, a critic of Israel and advocate for Palestinian rights.
Barack Obama has denied his close association with Khalidi, too.

According to Wallsten the evening not surprisingly turned into a classic Jew-bash:

“During the dinner a young Palestinian American recited a poem accusing the Israeli government of terrorism in its treatment of Palestinians and sharply criticizing U.S. support of Israel. If Palestinians cannot secure their own land, she said, “then you will never see a day of peace.”

One speaker likened “Zionist settlers on the West Bank” to Osama bin Laden, saying both had been “blinded by ideology.”

Barack Obama also praised the former PLO operative during the event.
And, Obama confessed that his family often shared dinner with the Khalidis:

His many talks with the Khalidis, Obama said, had been “consistent reminders to me of my own blind spots and my own biases… It’s for that reason that I’m hoping that, for many years to come, we continue that conversation — a conversation that is necessary not just around Mona and Rashid’s dinner table,” but around “this entire world.”

The event was videotaped, and a copy of the tape was obtained by The Times.

Khalidi and the Obamas were great friends in Chicago and often shared meals together.
By the way, Khalidi was also best friends with Bill Ayers.

Terrorist Bill Ayers— Barack Obama— Jew-hater Rashid Khalidi

On Wednesday I talked with Peter Wallsten from the Los Angeles Times about the article on Obama and Khalidi:

Wallston was one of the few mainstream media reporters to report on this radical Obama associate.

Wallston said that the article was written after he watched video taken at the Khalidi going away party. When I asked him about the video he said that as far as he was concerned he was through with the story.

I asked him if he was planning on releasing this video of Obama toasting the radical Khalidi at this Jew-bash. He told me he was not releasing the video. He also would not comment on his source for the video. Wallston also said he did not know if Khalidi’s good friend Bill Ayers was at the event or not.

So, there you have it. The LA Times has video of Obama toasting a former PLO operative at a Jew-bash but will not release the video. This is outrageous.

Obviously, this video would do great damage to Obama who struggles with Jewish voters due to his circle of close anti-Semitic friends.
Maybe this is the reason it is not being released?

More on Khalidi—
Not only does Barack Obama’s church of 20 years support Hamas and Hezbollah but Barack Obama also has a longtime close friendship and financial association with suspected former PLO operative and Israel hater Rashid Khalidi.
Earlier this month Sean Hannity dared to report on Barack and Michelle Obama’s radical associate and friend, Rashid Khalidi:

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Barack Obama funnelled thousands of dollars of cash to Rashidi’s anti-Israel Foundation through his work on the Woods Fund.

In 2000, Rashid Khalidi, a former PLO operative who justified Palestinian terrorism as contributing to “political enlightenment,” threw a fundraiser for his friend Barack Obama.

Although he is described as a former PLO operative, via Free Republic, this is what Rashid Khalidi has to say about Palestinian terrorism against Jews– he said anti-Israel violence contributed to “political enlightenment”:

On Palestinian violence. Khalidi glorifies anti-Israel violence as contributing to “political enlightenment”[vii] and unsurprisingly admires those who carry it out. His loyalty to Palestinian terrorist groups run so deep that he actually dedicated his 1986 valentine to the PLO, Under Siege, to “those who gave their lives . . . in defense of the cause of Palestine and independence of Lebanon.”[viii] The book whitewashes PLO violence against Israelis and Lebanese, as well as the Syrian occupation.

Khalidi and Ayers were practically best friends.
And, both Ayers and Obama signed the commemorative book given to Khalidi at his going away party.

It’s hard to imagine that the LA Times would hold onto a video of Sarah Palin praising an anti-Semitic radical and former PLO operative…
But, that is today’s mainstream media.

Tom Maguire has more on this radical friend of Barack and Michelle Obama.

Obama Camapaign Staff Withdraw Their Illegal Ballots | Palestra.net ~

Palestra.net’s Tiffany Wilson and Shelby Holliday appeared “On The Record With Greta Van Susteren” to discuss Obama campaign staffers withdrawing their votes in Ohio, as well as the resolution of the “Vote From Home” case.

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McCain Criticism of Obama & Administration Stepped Up

Sen. John McCain meets with local business leaders at Buckingham Smokehouse Bar-B-Q in Columbia, Mo.

John McCain told those gathered for a town hall meeting in Lima, in northwest Ohio, that Obama is a talented orator with an agenda that could be boiled down to simple policies the Arizona Republican opposes.

After the two waged a fierce campaign for the Republican nomination in 2000, McCain has remained a persistent burr in Bush’s side, White House insiders have recounted. Some recent quotes from McCain seem to indicate he has finally figured out what really concerns Americans:

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Government is too big, Obama wants to grow it. Taxes are to high, he wants to raise them, Congress spends too much and he proposes more. We need more energy and he’s against producing it. We’re finally winning in Iraq, and he wants to forfeit.”

I am so disturbed that this administration has not done what we have to do, and that is to go out and buy up these bad mortgages,”

Untested Obama

What if the storm does gets worse?

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National Review’s Byron York On CNN “Misquote”

CNN, most distrusted name in news?

Greta discusses the CNN deceitful interview with Palin.

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Democrat’s Gov Computers Used to Get Information on ‘Joe the Plumber’ – UPDATED

.Public records reveal driver’s license and SUV information on ‘Joe the Plumber’ was obtained from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database. One of the accounts accessing the information belonged to the Ohio Attorney General, Democrat Nancy Rogers.

Ohio officials are investigation whether government computer systems were illegally accessed to acquire personal information about “Joe the Plumber,” The Columbus Dispatch reports.

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Public records requested by The Dispatch reveal information on Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher’s driver’s license or his sport-utility vehicle was pulled from the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles database.

Information on Wurzelbacher was obtained on Oct. 17 through an account used by the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency in Cleveland, The Dispatch reported records as showing.

Access to such information from BMV computers is restricted to legitimate law enforcement and government business.

The Dispatch reported that information on Wurzelbacher was accessed by accounts assigned to the office of Ohio Attorney General Nancy H. Rogers, the Cuyahoga County Child Support Enforcement Agency and the Toledo Police Department.

It has not been determined who checked on Wurzelbacher, or why, The Dispatch reported.

The investigation could become “criminal in nature,” attorney general’s office spokeswoman Jennifer Brindisi told The Dispatch. Records show it was a “test account” assigned to the information technology section of the attorney general’s office, said Department of Public Safety spokesman Thomas Hunter.

The State Highway Patrol, which administers the Law Enforcement Automated Data System in Ohio, asked Toledo police to explain why it pulled BMV information on Wurzelbacher within 48 hours of the debate, Hunter said.

I can’t say I am surprised.  This is exactly the kind of thing the Democrats, and in particular the Obama Campaign are known for….digging up leverage to try to silence opposition.  Just like the threatend criminal complaints in St. Louis against anyone who dared to suggest Obama was Muslim, or had ties to terrorists, which he does.

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UPDATE, October 29, 2008:

A records clerk in the Toledo police investigative services bureau will face departmental charges of gross misconduct because a state database was used to access information about the Springfield Township man known worldwide as “Joe the Plumber.”

The clerk, Julie McConnell, will be the subject of a disciplinary hearing, likely to be scheduled next week, Chief Mike Navarre said yesterday.

Ms. McConnell was hired by the police department in April, 1995, and is a member of Local 7, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, a union that has endorsed and strongly supports, both financially and by supplying volunteers to Barack Obama.

An internal investigation began when Toledo police received a call from the Ohio Highway Patrol, asking why information on Samuel “Joe the Plumber” Wurzelbacher was pulled. The chief said Ms. McConnell looked up the information at the request of a local television reporter to confirm Mr. Wurzelbacher’s address.

The reporter was interviewed as part of the investigation.

Such information, though found on public records, was accessed through the Law Enforcement Automated Data System, often called LEADS.

Obama–Radical Socialist–Outed On YouTube. Listen!

Here is a video of Barack Obama praising New Party socialist and proud member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Danny Davis. Barack calls Davis One of the best Congressmen in the country because he shares “our values”:

New Party Program:

Our program is based on our commitment to democracy, responsibility and fairness. The issues that have been the focus of our local activity so far are campaign finance and other electoral reform, education, public safety, environmentally sustainable economic development, and living wages. As we grow, we are developing a more comprehensive program through a series of discussions and debates. We have also adopted a set of principles to guide our program work.

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Democrat: Obama’s Paternal Grandma Confirms Kenyan Birth!

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The Pennsylvania Democrat who has sued Sen. Barack Obama demanding he prove his American citizenship – and therefore qualification to run for  president – has confirmed he has a recording of a telephone call from the senator’s paternal grandmother confirming his birth in Kenya.

The issue of Obama’s birthplace, which he states is Honolulu in 1961, has been raised enough times that his campaign website has posted an image purporting to be of his “Certification of Live Birth” from Hawaii.

But Philip J. Berg, a former deputy attorney general for Pennsylvania, told the Michael Savage talk radio program tonight that the document is forged and that he has a tape recording he will soon release.

“This has been a real sham he’s pulled off for the last 20 months,” Berg told Savage. “I’ll release it [the tape] in a day or two, affidavits from her talking to a certain person. I heard the tape. She was speaking [to someone] here in the United States.”

He said the telephone call was from Obama’s paternal grandmother affirming she “was in the delivery room in Kenya when he was born Aug. 4, 1961.”

Berg said he’s pursuing the issue because of “the most important document in the United States,” the U.S. Constitution.

“Nothing is more important than enforcing the Constitution,” he said. “The Constitution’s provisions are very small for qualifying for president. One, be over 35, and he is. Two, be in the country 14 years, and he has been. Three, be a natural-born citizen. He is not.”

Obama campaign officials acknowledged the dispute by posting the image purporting to be a copy of his certification of live birth earlier this year. But they’ve declined to return WND requests for comment on the issues.

WND reported earlier this week Berg’s claim that Obama has legally “admitted” the accusations included in his lawsuit, including that he was born in Mombosa, Kenya, by not responding to the allegations.

Berg filed suit in U.S. District Court in August alleging Obama is not a natural-born citizen and is thus ineligible to serve as president of the United States.

His lawsuit is demanding that the courts verify Obama’s original birth certificate.

Berg has cited Rule 36 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, which states that unless the accused party provides written answer or objection to charges within 30 days, the accused legally admits the matter.

Since Obama filed only motions to dismiss the case and did not actually answer the claims, according to Rule 36, Obama has legally admitted he is not a natural-born citizen., asserted Berg, who has taken his information public through his website.

Berg addressed the existence of a birth announcement in the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper, featured on the Atlasshrugs2000 website, that suggests Obama was born in the city Aug. 4, 1961.

But Berg explained to Savage he believes Obama’s mother was near pregnancy and unable to travel by plane, so Obama was born in Kenya. The family then traveled to Hawaii and registered the birth and submitted the newspaper announcement.

Besides Berg’s lawsuit, several other court challenges also have been filed, including one in Washington state where petitioners are seeking to have the Washington secretary of state “verify Obama’s eligibility” to serve prior to the election.

The claim states, “The ‘certificate’ that Mr. Obama has posted on his official Website is a ‘Certification of Live Birth,’ and not a ‘Birth Certificate’ from Hawaii. There is no indication on even this certificate as to specifically where the birth took place.”

Berg also told Savage there is no information available on which hospital Obama’s mother used in Hawaii.

The Washington state case also alleges, “Wayne Madsen, Journalist with Online Journal as a contributing writer and published an article on June 9, 2008, stating that a research team went to Mombassa, Kenya, and located a Certificate Registering the birth of Barack Obama, Jr. at a Kenya Maternity Hospital, to his father, a Kenyan citizen and his mother, a U.S. citizen.

When Jerome Corsi, senior WND investigator reporter, recently traveled to Kenya to investigate several questions about the candidate, he was told the records were sealed and would not be made available.

Though it hasn’t given Berg the evidence he seeks, the Obama campaign has publicly answered allegations that the candidate was born in Kenya and faked his Hawaii birth certificate.

“Smears claiming Barack Obama doesn’t have a birth certificate aren’t actually about that piece of paper,” says the “Fight the Smears” section of Obama’s website, “they’re about manipulating people into thinking Barack is not an American citizen.

“The truth is, Barack Obama was born in the state of Hawaii in 1961, a native citizen of the United States of America,” the campaign website states. It also includes images of the Hawaii certificate bearing the name Barack Hussein Obama II.

The Washington claim states, “If in fact Obama was born in Kenya, the laws on the books in the United States at the time of his birth stated if a child is born abroad and one parent was a U.S. Citizen, which would have been his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, Obama’s mother would have had to live ten (10) years in the United States, five (5) of which were after the age of fourteen (14). At the time of Obama’s birth, his mother was only eighteen (18) and therefore did not meet the residency requirements under the law to give her son (Obama) U.S. Citizenship much less the status of ‘natural born.’”

Berg said he believed it also was a complication that Obama’s mother divorced his father, married and moved to Indonesia for several years and Obama attended school there at a time when, Berg said, only Indonesia citizens were allowed in schools. Records that are available from Indonesia revealed Obama was registered in school as Barry Soetoro, and his religion was listed as Islam.

When Obama later returned to Hawaii, within the United States, there should have been a government document affirming his citizenship, but that also cannot be found. If that was not processed properly, Berg said, Obama would be in a situation even worse than not being a natural-born citizen.

“If he didn’t go through immigration, he now is illegal and has been an illegal alien. He couldn’t even hold the position of senator for Illinois,” Berg said.

Further, Berg said he suspected Obama’s college records may indicate he received aid as a foreigner, and that’s why those records have been withheld by the campaign.

“I really think it’s because it probably indicates he’s from Kenya, or Indonesia, or received foreign aid,” Berg said.

“I feel very confident saying these things,” Berg told Savage.

Pew Research: Most Voters Say Media Wants Obama to Win

Voters overwhelmingly believe that the media wants Barack Obama to win the presidential election. By a margin of 70%-9%, Americans say most journalists want to see Obama, not John McCain, win on Nov. 4. Another 8% say journalists don’t favor either candidate, and 13% say they don’t know which candidate most reporters support.

In recent presidential campaigns, voters repeatedly have said they thought journalists favored the Democratic candidate over the Republican. But this year’s margin is particularly wide.

At this stage of the 2004 campaign, 50% of voters said most journalists wanted to see John Kerry win the election, while 22% said most journalists favored George Bush. In October 2000, 47% of voters said journalists wanted to see Al Gore win and 23% said most journalists wanted Bush to win. In 1996, 59% said journalists were pulling for Bill Clinton.

In the current campaign, Republicans, Democrats and independents all feel that the media wants to see Obama win the election. Republicans are almost unanimous in their opinion: 90% of GOP voters say most journalists are pulling for Obama. More than six-in-ten Democratic and independent voters (62% each) say the same.

The media coverage of the race for president has not so much cast Barack Obama in a favorable light as it has portrayed John McCain in a substantially negative one, according to a new study of the media since the two national political conventions ended.

Coverage of McCain has been heavily unfavorable — and has become more so over time. In the six weeks following the conventions through the final debate, unfavorable stories about McCain outweighed favorable ones by a factor of more than three-to-one — the most unfavorable of all four candidates — according to the study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

For Obama during this period, just over a third of the stories were clearly positive in tone (36%), while a similar number (35%) were neutral or mixed. A smaller number (29%) were negative.

For McCain, by comparison, nearly six-in-ten stories studied were decidedly negative in nature (57%), while fewer than two-in-ten (14%) were positive.

Read the full report at journalism.org

Newspapers Show Obama Lied — He Did Belong To Socialist Party!

Evidence has emerged that Sen. Barack Obama belonged to a socialist political party that sought to elect members to public office with the aim of moving the Democratic Party far leftward to ultimately form a new political party with a socialist agenda.

UPDATE! Also see this post.

Several blogs, including Powerline, previously documented that while running for the Illinois state Senate in 1996 as a Democrat, Obama actively sought and received the endorsement of the socialist-oriented New Party, with some blogs claiming Obama was a member of the controversial party.

The New Party, formed by members of the Democratic Socialists for America and leaders of an offshoot of the Community Party USA, was an electoral alliance that worked alongside the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN. The New Party’s aim was to help elect politicians to office who espouse its policies.

Among New Party members was linguist and radical leftist activist Noam Chomsky.

Obama’s campaign has responded to the allegations, denying the presidential candidate was ever a member of the New Party, this before the damning evidence was disclosed.

But the New Zeal blog dug up print copies of the New Party News, the party’s official newspaper, which show Obama posing with New Party leaders, list him as a New Party member and include quotes from him.

Note that the text refers to Barack Obama as a New Party member, while Willie Delgado is only "NP endorsed"

The party’s Spring 1996 newspaper boasted: “New Party members won three other primaries this Spring in Chicago: Barack Obama (State Senate), Michael Chandler (Democratic Party Committee) and Patricia Martin (Cook County Judiciary). The paper quoted Obama saying “these victories prove that small ‘d’ democracy can work.”

The newspaper lists other politicians it endorsed who were not members but specifies Obama as a New Party member.

Click To Enlarge Image

New Ground, the newsletter of Chicago’s Democratic Socialists for America, reported in its July/August 1996 edition that Obama attended a New Party membership meeting April 11, 1996, in which he expressed his gratitude for the group’s support and “encouraged NPers (New Party members) to join in his task forces on Voter Education and Voter Registration.”

Becoming a New Party member requires some effort on behalf of the politician. Candidates must be approved by the party’s political committee and, once approved, must sign a contract mandating they will have a “visible and active relationship” with the party.

The New Party, established in 1992, took advantage of what was known as electoral “fusion,” which enabled candidates to run on two tickets simultaneously, attracting voters from both parties. But the New Party went defunct in 1998, one year after fusion was halted by the Supreme Court.

J-O-B-S or T-A-X-E-S: We Can’t Have Both

By Brian Sullivan

Higher taxes and job creation are the oil and water of economics.  They simply don’t go together.

It’s a basic concept.  The more a business gives to the government, the less free cash it has to use on new salaries.   It’s why John McCain wants to cut the corporate tax rate to 25% from 35%.   That extra 10% can go toward hiring a lot of workers and keeping jobs in the U.S.   Remember America has the 4th highest corporate tax rate in the world.   It’s no wonder jobs continue to move overseas.

This is not a partisan argument.   Many Democratic leaders feel the same way and understand the damage higher taxes will mean for job creation.  Consider this excerpt from today’s Wall Street Journal:

The Obama plan is an incentive to hire fewer workers.   Barack Obama declared last week that his economic plan begins with “one word that’s on everyone’s mind and it’s spelled J-O-B-S.”. This raises the stubborn question that Senator Obama has never satisfactorily answered: How do you create more jobs when you want to levy higher tax rates on the small business owners who are the nation’s primary employers?  Loyal Democrats have howled over the claim that small businesses will get soaked by the Obama tax plan, so we thought we would seek an authority they might trust on the issue: Democratic Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus of Montana.

Here is what Mr. Baucus wrote in a joint press release with Iowa Republican Charles Grassley on August 20, 2001, when they supported the income tax rate cuts that Mr. Obama wants to repeal: “. . . when the new tax relief law is fully phased in, entrepreneurs and small businesses — owners of sole proprietorships, partnerships, S corporations, and farms — will  receive 80 percent of the tax relief associated with reducing the top income tax rates of 36 percent to 33 percent and 39.6 percent to 35 percent.”. Then they continued with a useful economics tutorial: “Experts agree that lower taxes increase a business’ cash flow, which helps with liquidity constraints during an economic slowdown and could increase the demand for investment and labor.”. Twelve Senate Democrats voted for those same tax cuts.  And just to be clear on one point: An increase in “the demand for investment and labor” translates into an increase in J-O-B-S.

So if lowering these tax rates creates jobs, then it stands to reason that raising these taxes will mean fewer jobs.  From 2003 to 2007 with the lower tax rates in place, the U.S. economy added eight million jobs, or about 125,000 per month.  The Small Business Administration says small business wrote the paychecks for up to 80% of new jobs in 2005, for example.  Mr. Obama’s tax increase would hit the bottom line of small businesses in three direct ways.

Since Senator Baucus is on the record agreeing lower taxes are good for jobs, why has he and the other Democratic leaders who voted for this suddenly clammed up?    They have either done the world’s greatest flip-flop on the impact of tax hikes on jobs, or have spoken up privately and been ignored by the Obama camp.

So that’s small business.   But what about the big boys?    If you believe the hype that big business doesn’t pay taxes, consider this: last year ExxonMobil paid more in taxes than the bottom 50% of the entire population of American taxpayers.   So if you are one that has come to believe you should hate “big oil,” consider what your tax burden would be if that $30+ billion (which is on its way to $40 billion for 2008) in tax revenue paid by Exxon suddenly dried up.

So since the Congressional record proves that many Democrats understand the relationship between jobs and taxes as well as any supply-side Republican, their silence surrounding the proposed tax increases speaks volumes about where their true interests lie.

Conceited Obama Already Spending Millions On Election Night Celebration

Obama: Ego For The Ages

Barack Obama took a lot of ribbing for setting up Greek columns on the larger-than-life set of his nomination acceptance speech in Denver two months ago.

But at least he knew for certain then that when the ballgame was over — he was going to be the Democratic candidate for president.

Now, with the Nov. 4 general election still 12 days away, the front-running Illinois senator is already planning a massive ego-fulfilling election Night celebration that will put his Invesco Field party to shame.

Kanye West, Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead … Senator Barack Obama? The Democratic presidential candidate has booked the same area in Chicago’s Grant Park that hosts several of the stages at the annual Lollapalooza Festival, and if early estimates hold (250,000+), the crowd in his hometown on the evening of November 4 could best the daily totals put up by the granddaddy of alternative-rock festivals.

A huge stage is being constructed in Chicago’s Grant Park, where Obama hopes to declare victory before a cheering throng that could dwarf the one at the Democratic convention. Back then, “only” 80,000 fans were in attendance that night. This time, it could be hundreds of thousands in the park and its surroundings — closer to Berlin in July than Denver in August.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports the price tag of the fanfare has been pegged at $3 million +, to be picked up by the Obama campaign. Mayor Richard Daley reportedly suggested Obama use a cheaper venue, but was turned down, by the stuck on itself Obama campaign organization.

Asked how many people the campaign was anticipating in Grant Park, Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor quipped, “At least 10.”

“We have a lot of supporters who have given their time and effort to the campaign, and we want them to share in the election night with us. We fully expect to surpass the 350,000 people who turned out for the Pope”.

It is now more obvious than ever that Obama is a an insecure narcissist who needs flunkies, yes men and the adulation of a massive crowd at all times, to feed his huge ego.  He honestly thinks it is his “due”.

MSNBC & ACORN Joining Forces To Make Sure Obama Election Fraud Works

MS-DNC (MSNBC) is teaming up with ACORN, La Raza and a host of other far-left groups with a “hot line” to combat Republican attempts at voter fraud election day!

Seriously!  I saw a report on one of the TV newscasts, and later found this item, among others, in a Google search, from Town Hall’s Amanda Carpenter:

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MSNBC has launched a news project with a variety of left-wing special interest groups to boost their Election Day coverage and help viewers experiencing problems at the polls.

One of the groups involved in MSNBC’s “Election Protection” project is the Association of Community Organizers for Reform Now.  ACORN has been involved in rampant voter registration fraud across the nation this election cycle and is actively supporting Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama for president.

“Our partnership with Election Protection will play a major role in NBC News’ ‘Making Your Vote Count’ coverage, said Phil Alongi, Executive Producer of NBC News’ Election Coverage in an Oct. 22 press release. “Not only will we be able to direct voters who are experiencing problems with a hotline to call, we will also have our team of reporters and producers follow-up on the information Election Protection is gathering.”

When asked for comment about ACORN’s role in the project MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines wrote Townhall in an email “this a question for them, not us.”

Most of the groups MSNBC wants their viewers to contact and shape their news coverage on Election Day have extreme liberal agendas ranging and focus on variety of issues including housing, gay rights, amnesty, environmental policies and labor.

The National Council of La Raza, U.S. Pirg, NAACP, the Human Rights Campaign, the National Gay and Lesbian Law Association, Sierra Club and the Service Employees International Union are among Election Protection’s  many partners.

ACORN is not listed as a partner on the Election Protection’s main website, but is listed as a partner on a promotional flyer that is available on the website.

These groups actively lobby Congress to support liberal policies. Most of them are openly supporting Barack Obama and other Democrats in the November elections.

Election Protection claims to be non-partisan. None of their listed partner groups, however, lean conservative.

Daytime anchor David Shuster promoted the effort Wednesday by telling viewers, “NBC is making your vote count. If you have a question about voting or problems at the polls, our partners at Election Protection can help. They have trained volunteers available to answer your questions. Call 1-866-OUR-VOTE if you have a question or if you run into or see any problems.”

Anchor Contessa Brewer has similarly hyped the project. The Election Project features a snippet of her telling viewers about the project on their website. She described MSNBC’s relationship with Election Protection as an ‘exclusive partnership’. “

Excuse me while I go and hurl now.  I will update this later, possibly, or perhaps a new post will be in order, talking about how since the media has abandoned any form of impartiality, the Constitution needs to be amended to take away the special priviledges bestowed on it.

CNN (Obama Campaign Directed) Lies To Impugn Palin & McCain

On Tuesday’s (10/21/2008) Situation Room, CNN’s Drew Griffin completely mischaracterized the nature of a “quote” from National Review’s Byron York during his interview with Governor and Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin.

Griffin said to Gov. Palin: “Governor, you’ve been mocked in the press, the press has been pretty hard on you, the Democrats have been pretty hard on you, but also some conservatives have been pretty hard on you as well.  The National Review had a story saying that, you know, ‘I can’t tell if Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt or all of the above.’”

This is a complete distortion, a falsehood.  The full quote from the National Review’s Byron York shows he was in fact dressing down the media, NOT Gov. Palin.  “Watching press coverage of the Republican candidate for vice president, it’s sometimes hard to decide whether Sarah Palin is incompetent, stupid, unqualified, corrupt, backward, or — or, well, all of the above.”

Watch the video, in two parts, and see for yourself exactly how blatant Drew Griffin, under orders from CNN management, and ultimately the Obama Campaign, lies to Governor Palin.  Is there anyone reading this who doubts this is all part of a coordinated smear?  Can anyone seriously doubt we are watching the outcome of a direct assault on our electoral process?  Can anyone be so stupid or clueless NOT to know the Obama Campaign is coordinating, with the willing assistance of the Main Stream Media, all of these attacks on John McCain and Sarah Palin?   I mean, this isn’t some isolated incident.

Part Two:

Bill O’Reilly spent his Talking Points memo last night [click link to watch] to go after CNN and correspondent Drew Griffinthe fallout from Griffin’s interview with Gov. Sarah Palin. after

O’Reilly said Griffin “totally distorted what [Byron] York wrote in the article,” and said The Factor called CNN for comment and got none.

“I haven’t been critical of CNN during the campaign,” said O’Reilly. “They’ve been pretty honest in their coverage, I believe.”

Later in the show, O’Reilly had York on to discuss the issue. “CNN owes it to their audience, and owes it to Gov. Palin, to correct the record,” said the FNC host.

• FNC’s Greta Van Susteren also discussed the interview on her show last night with Newt Gingrich. Here’s her take on Gretawire.

Study Shows McCain Media Coverage Mostly Negative

The Project for Excellence in Journalism’s report shows John McCain’s media coverage has been 57 percent negative, while Barack Obama’s has been 29% negative.

John McCain may long for the days when Barack Obama got the lion’s share of the media attention: Coverage of the Republican candidate has been overwhelmingly negative since the conventions ended, a study released Wednesday found.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism’s report illustrates how the media echo chamber can send things spiraling out of control for a candidate. It’s likely to give ammunition to people who say the press has been biased against McCain, but the organization said its findings on this were inconclusive.

“It’s quite possible for there to be elements of enthusiasm for one candidate or another,” said Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Washington-based think tank. “That’s a failure of professionalism if it’s there. But this report can’t suss it out.”

McCain and Obama have received an equal amount of media attention since the conventions.

The project judged 57 percent of the stories about McCain as negative, with 14 percent positive. The rest were neutral.

Obama’s coverage was mixed: 36 percent positive, 29 percent negative, 35 percent neutral, the study found.

Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin has received three times the press attention as the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Joe Biden, the study found. Her stories were judged 39 percent negative, 33 percent mixed and 28 percent positive.

Palin’s coverage started out positive but turned when reporters went to Alaska to check on her record as governor. The study found only 5 percent of the stories were about Palin’s family, most of them in the days after it was revealed her daughter was pregnant.

The Project for Excellence in Journalism studied some 2,412 stories from 48 news outlets for its study, including newspapers, Web sites and broadcast and cable news. A smaller sample, 857 stories, was used to judge the tone of the coverage.

John Gibson: “Ever hear of a guy named Rashid Khalidi?”

By John Gibson

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Ever hear of a guy named Rashid Khalidi?

It’s not a household name, but Khalidi is a friend of Barack Obama’s, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University in New York.

Back when Bill Ayers was bombing the Pentagon and Barack Obama was 8 years old, Khalidi was in Beirut where, according to The Los Angeles Times, he acted a spokesman for Yasser Arafat’s PLO.

Later in the ’90s when Barack Obama was starting his political career, Khalidi advised the Palestinian delegation during peace negotiations. Again according to The L.A. Times, when Khalidi was a professor in Chicago, Barack and Michelle Obama were frequent dinner guests at the Khalidi home.

But recently when Obama was asked about Khalidi before an audience of American supporters of Israel, he said this:

“And I do know him. And I have had conversations. He is not one of my advisers. He is not one of my foreign policy people. His kids went to the lab school where my kids go as well.”

Sounds like the way he described Pentagon bomber Bill Ayers: “a guy I know in the neighborhood.”

Well, more than that, we know that Obama and Ayers were partners on a foundation board that gave away a $100 million over a seven year period and that Obama’s political career was launched at a fundraiser in Ayers’ living room.

Now we have Khalidi, the PLO representative, who is also someone — quote — “I do know.”

But it was more than friendly dinners. Over a period of time when Obama ran the Woods Fund, he approved somewhere in the neighborhood of $75,000 to Khalidi’s Arab American Action Network and in 2000 Khalidi and his wife hosted a fundraiser for Obama.

Notice a pattern? Close involvement with people like Ayers and Khalidi — both socially and financially — and when asked about these close associations, they suddenly become just “someone I know in the neighborhood” or someone whose kids go to my kids’ school.

Why is Obama covering up his friendships and why is the media working so hard to ignore Obama’s friends?

Colombia Smashes Drug Ring With Hezbollah Ties

Fausta’s Blog reports extraordinary news from Colombia:

Colombia smashes drug ring with Hezbollah ties!

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Colombian authorities said on Tuesday they broke up a drug and money-laundering ring in an international operation that included the capture of three people suspected of shipping funds to Hezbollah guerrillas. More than 100 suspects were arrested in Colombia and overseas on charges they trafficked drugs and laundered cash for Colombia’s Norte del Valle cartel and for outlawed paramilitaries in a network that stretched from South America to Asia, the attorney’s general office said.

“The criminal organisation used routes through Venezuela, Panama, Guatemala, Middle East and Europe, bringing in cash from the sale of these substances,” the statement said.

Among those arrested in Colombia were three people suspected of coordinating drug smuggling to send some of their profits to groups such as Hezbollah, the office said.

Those suspects — Chekry Mahmoud Harb, Ali Mohamad Abdul Rahim and Zacaria Hussein Harb — used front companies to send drug cash overseas, it said without providing further details.

Also among the arrested, Guatemalan drug kingpin Otto Roberto Herrera García one of the 40 most wanted criminals in the world.”

Report Raises Questions About Illegal Use of ACORN’s Funds

The New York Times reports on a previously undisclosed internal memo that raises new questions about the way ACORN’s funding is used.

ACORN was drawing new scrutiny Wednesday after an internal memo surfaced that raised concerns about whether the low-income advocacy organization improperly used charitable dollars for political purposes.

The memo, written by Washington lawyer Elizabeth Kingsley, delved into ACORN’s relationship with Project Vote, a group Barack Obama worked with in Chicago in the mid-’90s.

The memo, according to a report in The New York Times, said the close ACORN-Project Vote ties make it impossible to determine whether Project Vote’s funds were used only for non-partisan purposes, as the law requires. The two organizations work together on voter registration drives.

The memo also addressed concerns about money transfers among ACORN affiliates and potential conflicts caused by employees of multiple affiliates, and it gave a different account from the organization of the embezzlement of almost $1 million by the brother of ACORN’s founder, according to the Times report.

Bertha Lewis, ACORN’s top executive, told the Times the group is looking into the report and has “taken everything [Kingsley] said in the report very seriously.”

ACORN, which is under investigation for voter registration fraud in several states, has consistently said its voter registration efforts are non-partisan.

The group, along with the Obama campaign, is fighting back against the fraud allegations.

Click here to read The New York Times article on ACORN.

“Part of the Problem” – neverfindout.org

The record is the record. Obama can deny the facts, but cannot change them. He was in the tank for ACORN and the mortgage and securities people, which is why they paid him so much, along with Barney Frank and Chris Dodd.

New Info On Obama & Ayers

In April, 2002, Ayers Says Everyone In His Office Knew He Was Terrorist-Marxist.Obama and Ayers both had offices on the same floor of a rather small office building.This video discusses many Obama/Ayers interactions, and concludes there is no way Obama didn’t know of Ayers background, and continued their association.

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A Post That Speaks For Itself

Above quotes are verbatim, in context and factual.

In Barack Obama’s book, I read just a few years ago, he said that Jeremiah Wright was his friend, pastor and mentor, his spiritual guide.  He attended Wright’s church for 20 years. Barack Obama lied and said he never once heard Rev. Wright express thoughts like this.

Really, he said that.

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Ayers Says Everyone In His Office Knew He Was Terrorist-Marxist

Barack Obama Lied About His Relationship With Bill Ayers.

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Troops Polled, and … It’s McCain

Military Times poll of all active duty troops show McCain supported 3-1 over Obama.

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Military Times: Troops Support McCain 3-to-1 Over Obama!

Well known leftist-leaning Gannett News Service, which owns a multitude of newspapers, radio stations, and magazines in the U.S. and the UK, also has a long history of supporting the Democrat Party.

Gannett also owns the Military Times.

A military-wide presidential poll of active-duty soldiers from all branches, conducted by the Military Times, shows McCain hugely favored over Obama.

If Soldiers Could Choose Their Own Commander-in-Chief

(Source: Military Times Poll for 2008 Presidential Election)

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All Branches	McCain	Obama	Uncommitted
ALL BRANCHES	68%	23%	9%
White non-Hispanic	76%	17%	7%
African-American	12%	79%	9%
Hispanic-Latino	63%	27%	10%
“Other” Race Specified	58%	30%	12%
By Rank	McCain	Obama	Uncommitted
Enlisted Military	67%	24%	9%
Military Officers	70%	22%	8%
By Branch	McCain	Obama	Uncommitted
Army	68%	23%	9%
Navy	69%	24%	7%
Air Force	67%	24%	9%
Marines	75%	18%	7%
By Gender	McCain	Obama	Uncommitted
Men	70%	22%	8%
Women	53%	36%	11%
By Age	McCain	Obama	Uncommitted
18-34	65%	27%	8%
35 and older	70%	21%	9%

With the obvious exception of the racial slant in the black vote, which like the civilian black voting bloc mostly trends heavily towards the candidate running as an African-American, no other sector of the military comes even close to supporting Barack Obama for Commander-in-Chief.

Now, Obama supporters point to Powell. But Powell is a known political opportunist who has clearly taken a side against active duty military members before, and again in this election.

They will attempt to discredit the published results by claiming some right-wing slant. But the Military Times is owned and edited by left-leaning Gannett News Service.

They will call all non-black members of the military “racists” for opposing Obama, just like they label other Americans opposing Obama as “racists.” Never mind the overt racism in the black vote.

They might even try to label these men and women in uniform “fascists” – since they don’t know what a “fascist” really is and have misused the name to describe Bush and Cheney for years now.

But they can’t hurt our soldier’s feelings anymore than they already have by calling them “terrorists” running “Gulags” and “torture chambers.”

Yet the facts remain…

Active troops support John McCain 3-to-1 over Barack Obama.

Colin Powell stands to personally gain power and money by supporting Obama. What do the troops stand to gain by supporting John McCain for Commander-in-Chief?

As the men and women actually in Iraq and Afghanistan, who know best what is happening on the ground there and in many other dangerous places around the globe, does their opinion matter to average Americans back home? Do they matter to you?

What do we mean when we say “we support the troops?”

There is no ambiguity in the results of the military poll that shows  all branches combined still support McCain by 68% over only 23% for Obama.

What does this mean about Americans back home who do not have their lives on the line, when they vote against the troops?

Who is better qualified to choose the next Commander-in-Chief?  The troops “we support,” or the millions back home who have never put on a uniform or taken up a weapon in defense of this nation?

Who has more at stake than our troops in harm’s way, when deciding who the next Commander-in-Chief will be?

What does it say about you if their opinion doesn’t matter to you?

John McCain is “one of them!”

Barack Obama is so far from being “one of them,” that he can’t even begin to imagine what it is to be “one of them.”

The troops will serve under anyone we elect. Some of them will die under whomever we elect.

Do you have what it really takes to “support our troops?” Colin Powell doesn’t… Colin Powell has once again chosen to serve himself.

Read those numbers above. Think about the men and women who answered those surveys. Try to imagine what this election means to them. Then ask yourself why they won’t support Barack Hussein Obama for their next Commander-in-Chief…

Then ask yourself, how can you?

You can stand with leftists attempting to serve themselves if you like…

I, on the other hand, will SUPPORT THE TROOPS who support McCain!

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Radical Left Planning “Disruptions”, “Resistance” If McCain Wins

Direct from one of their sites, Radical Leftists planning violence, “Resistance” if McCain wins.

Note the circular, nonsensical reasoning, the “end justifies the means” non-logic. Do you sense the passion, the anger….the very real threat?

This is nothing but a threat, aimed at all of us, if the election doesn’t go as they want. Do not make the mistake of thinking this is just idle talk.  Do some searches, you will find hundreds of similar articles and postings.  They have been planning for months.

Read this, which is from one of their sites, and be afraid.  Very afraid. Are these the kind of people we want to turn our government over to?

A McCain “Win” Will Be Theft, Resistance Is Planned by David Swanson

Global Research, October 20, 2008

afterdowningstreet.org/ . . If your television declares John McCain the president elect on the evening of November 4th, your television will be lying. You should immediately pick up your pre-packed bags and head straight to the White House in Washington, D.C., which we will surround and shut down until this attempt at a third illegitimate presidency is reversed. A McCain “win” will not be illegitimate because I disagree with his policies, but because he himself has rendered it illegitimate. He and his campaign and allied supporters have sought to illegally remove hundreds of thousands of voters from the rolls, fraudulently registered people as Republicans without their knowledge and against their will, obstructed voter registration drives, falsely warned students against voting where they attend school, falsely accused community groups of voter registration fraud, falsely alleged the widespread existence of voter fraud, and encouraged supporters to falsely believe McCain’s opponent is a foreign terrorist through speeches, recorded phone messages, and flyers. Already in early voting in a number of states there have been cases of votes on electronic machines visibly flipping to McCain or McKinney when intended for Obama. We will see McCain supporters on November 4th challenging people’s right to vote, seeking to force people to vote on provisional ballots, and seeking to have provisional ballots discarded. And we will see electronic vote counts wildly out of step with the most recent polls, although not with exit polls — which we will be denied any access to unless they have been “adjusted” to match the official counts. Inciting your supporters to violence with racist and religious lies about your opponent, effectively alleging treason on absolutely no basis, should be enough, alone, to disqualify a campaign for the presidency of the United States. Working to block voters from registering should be enough on its own. Any of the dozens of creative forms of vote suppression currently being used by the Republicans should be enough. And allowing votes to be counted on completely unverifiable machines owned and controlled by corporations allied with your party should make the results illegitimate even if plausible. If McCain is declared the “winner,” it will not be plausible, but at this point he has so disgraced himself and our electoral system that he is no longer a legitimate candidate for president regardless of what the polls (themselves fallible, but all we’ve got) say just before election day. Too many people have already been denied the opportunity to even push the buttons and have their votes miscounted. Too much incendiary slander has been let loose. Too much visible vote flipping has already been documented. If Obama officially wins, McCain is likely to challenge it, charging the Obama campaign with some of the very crimes engaged in by McCain himself. Our reaction should be exactly the same in the event of a McCain challenge as in the event of a McCain “victory.” We should not sit back for even a split second and wonder how it will work out. We should not try to organize a plan on the spur of the moment to travel to key battleground states. We should be prepared already to immediately travel to Washington, D.C., head straight for the White House, occupy Lafayette Square Park, the Ellipse, and surrounding streets, block entrances, and shut the place down until Obama is recognized as the president elect. We may be there for days or weeks or months. But we must be there. We must be there by the millions. We must show each other, and the nation, and the world that we have had enough, that we will not stand for one more stolen election, that we will not give in to fear, lies, theft, and intimidation. If they choose to attack our gathering of citizens, let them do it right in front of George W. Bush’s White House with the world’s media watching. We will not back down! I’m not hoping it comes to this, of course. If it doesn’t because the official election results are credible and just, we should celebrate and prepare to lobby our government for real change. But if resistance does not develop because people are too scared and obedient to act, then you’ll still be glad you packed ahead of time, and you might want to look into tickets to Canada.” David Swanson is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by David Swanson

Obama’s Plan: Driver’s Licenses for Illegals

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Obama wants to give a driver’s license to any illegal alien who wants one. The 9/11 plot depended on such licenses!

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Background: The driver’s license issue emerged in September 2007, when then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer ordered New York officials to grant driver’s licenses to illegals. During the Oct. 30, 2007, Democratic primary debate at Drexel University, Sen. Hillary Clinton fumbled a question from the late Tim Russert over whether she supported Spitzer’s plan. As for Obama, he has supported driver’s licenses for illegals since his days in the Illinois Senate, and continues to maintain that training illegals to drive, and insuring them, enhances public safety.

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Fact: Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff called then-Gov. Elliot Spitzer in October 2007, warning his plan to grant driver’s licenses to illegals would undermine federal plans to enhance security. Spitzer withdrew the plan two weeks later. [Source: The New York Times, Oct. 31, 2007]

Fact: During the Democratic presidential debate held in Las Vegas in November 2007, moderator Wolf Blitzer asked Obama if he supported driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants. Obama answered: “Yes.” [Source: Debate transcript, Nov. 15, 2007, Las Vegas]

Fact: Obama also addressed the licensing of illegals during the October 2007 debate. Asked if he favored Spitzer’s plan, Obama replied: “I think that it is the right idea. And I disagree with [Sen.] Chris [Dodd], because there is a public safety concern. We can make sure that drivers who are illegal come out of the shadows, that they can be tracked, that they are properly trained, and that will make our roads safer. That doesn’t negate the need for us to reform illegal immigration.” [Source: Debate transcript, Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pa., Oct. 30, 2007]

Fact: The 19 terrorists involved in 9/11 obtained 13 driver’s licenses, as well as 21 federal or state-issued ID cards. Eight of the 9/11 terrorists were registered to vote. [Source: Wall Street Journal column by John Fund, Nov. 2, 2007]

Fact: The day Gov. Spitzer withdrew his driver’s license plan, Clinton released this statement: “I support Governor Spitzer’s decision today to withdraw his proposal. His difficult job is made that much harder by the failure of the Congress and the White House to pass comprehensive immigration reform. “As president, I will not support driver’s licenses for undocumented people, and will press for comprehensive immigration reform that deals with all of the issues around illegal immigration including border security and fixing our broken system.” [Source: Hillary Clinton statement dated Nov. 14, 2007]

Fact: A full 77 percent of American adults oppose granting driver’s licenses to people who are in the United States illegally. [Source: Rasmussen Reports, national telephone survey, November 2007]

Fact: There are 203 million licensed drivers in America, according to the Federal Highway Administration. Approximately 1 in 5 fatal car accidents involves a driver who, for whatever reason, does not have a valid driver’s license. [Source: "Outrageous! Cracking Down on Illegal Drivers" by Michael Crowley, Readers Digest, September 2008]

Fact: Sen. John McCain’s online policy statements do not specifically address driver’s licenses for illegals. McCain is on record, however, opposing any benefits for those who “have come here illegally and broke our laws.” In one speech he pledged, “It would be among my highest priorities to secure our borders first, and only after we achieved widespread consensus that our borders are secure, would we address other aspects of the problem in a way that defends the rule of law and does not encourage another wave of illegal immigration.” [Source: Feb. 7, 2008 speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference, CPAC]

Fact: In February, Obama told ABC’s David Muir, “If [McCain] wants to try to parse out this one issue of driver’s licenses, an issue of public safety, my response is that we have to solve the overall problem and this driver’s license issue is a distraction.” [Source: "Obama Defends Illegals' Driver's Licenses," ABC.com]

Fact: When he served as a member of the Illinois state Senate, Obama voted to train, insure, and license illegals to operate motor vehicles in order to “protect public safety.” [Source: Debate transcript, Nov. 15, 2007, Las Vegas]

Joe Biden: Obama’s Inexperience Will Prompt Terrorists To Test Us (Audio)

ABC News’ Matthew Jaffe Reports: Senator Joe Biden, D-Del., on Sunday guaranteed that if elected, Sen. Barack Obama., D-Ill., will be tested by an international crisis within his first six months in power and he will need supporters to stand by him as he makes tough, and possibly unpopular, decisions.

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Gird your loins…Mark my words, It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America.

Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.

I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate,  the Middle East and Russia are possibilities. And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you – not financially to help him – we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”

Isn’t this an argument for electing someone with more experience?

Why should we elect a man who will embolden our enemies and push us to the brink of disaster?

Biden seems convinced that electing John McCain will make our enemies abroad much less sanguine about provoking us — which is one of the best arguments yet heard for electing McCain.

Even worse, Biden admits that an Obama administration will likely fumble the ball. “It’s not going to be apparent that we’re right.” Really? Why not?

I’d say that Biden (perhaps in yet another alcohol-induced  moment ) is admitting that Obama will deviate from long-held principles of American foreign policy and diplomacy, knows he plans to, and expects to reap a whirlwind of disapproval because of that.

Where will that be most likely to occur, given Obama’s previous political alliances with people like Rashid Khalidi?

It’s no coincidence that every megalomaniacal, tyrannical, tin-horn dictator and terrorist in the world has expressed a strong preference for seeing the Obama in the White House.

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A WHOLE NEW GAME: A PLUMBER’S GIFT TO MCCAIN

By Dick Morris

Ronald Reagan’s most important contribution to the American political dialogue was his ability to move the tax issue from an economic-populist issue into a populist, blue-collar one. Under George W. Bush, however, the issue has switched back to one of class warfare, as increasing numbers of Americans have paid no taxes at all and the rates on those who did pay taxes fell. Now, a chance encounter with “Joe the Plumber” has afforded the Republicans the chance to use taxes as a blue-collar issue.

The opening Joe provided and John McCain skillfully exploited in the third presidential debate gives the GOP ticket its first long shot at victory since McCain punted on the terrible, pork-laden, corporate-giveaway “rescue” bill Congress passed and Bush signed. Obama’s tax plans and spending programs have emerged as the key point of difference between the campaigns. And the Democrat’s comment to Joe that he saw his tax policy as a “way to spread the wealth around” underscores the motive behind his program: to redistribute income. Obama might as well have told Joe, “I want to take the hard earned money you make fixing pipes and give it to other people.”

If the Republican Party concentrates its fire on the tax issue and the redistributionist impulse behind Obama’s plans, it can close the Democratic lead point by point, day by day, until the election. McCain’s campaign must resist the temptation to take random shots on other issues and zero in on the tax-and-spend issue, stressing how taxes penalize those who work hard and live right.

In fact, the rich are paying vastly more in taxes than they ever have. “Reality Check,” by Dennis Keegan and David West, points out that the percentage of income-tax revenues paid by the top percent of the population has almost doubled in the last 20 years; it now pays 40 percent of all income tax. (The bottom half in income pays less than 3 percent.) Despite the lower rates, the rich are paying more in taxes because they are earning more and more. In the last eight years, real, after-inflation income growth for the top 10 percent of the population has been more than 45 percent.

Essentially, the tax debate comes down to economic populism versus social populism. The Democratic economic populists rail against the rich and demand that they pay more in taxes. The Republican social populists decry the notion of income redistribution as rewarding failure and penalizing hard work. Until Joe, the economic-populist polarity dominated the presidential race to the detriment of the Republicans. But now Joe has brought the social-populist argument back to life.

Because there always are, there will doubtless be those who see the social-populist approach as a code word for racism, especially because it is directed against the proposals of an African-American candidate. But the dichotomy that social populism exploits is one that separates the most productive members of our work force from the others, in the spirit of Joe the Plumber. Race is quite beside the point.

The question is whether McCain has the discipline to pursue the tax issue doggedly for the rest of the campaign. The other targets – from Bill Ayers to ACORN – are so tempting but ultimately appeal to the Republican base and few others. But taxes hit us all.

The core difference between the American working class and its European equivalents is that Europeans are inclined to vote based on their current condition while Americans base their decisions more on their goals and objectives for the future. Americans assume upward mobility while Europeans do not. Each nation’s workers are correct in their assessments.

Despite the widening gap between the richest 20 percent and the poorest in the United States, the economic chart is constantly churning. People are always moving out of the bottom fifth and up the scale, their places at the bottom of the ladder yielding to new arrivals, usually from abroad. So Americans are right to vote their dreams.

Obama’s European socialist tendency to sabotage growth in the interests of “fairness” merely serves to convert an American model that works into a European one that does not.

Obama Praised As ‘Searing and Timely’ Book by Terrorist Ayers

Barack Obama, who has consistently downplayed his relationship with William Ayers during his presidential campaign, once gave a glowing endorsement of a book by the former domestic terrorist and was mentioned by name in the book itself.

A blogger unearthed the Dec. 21, 1997, endorsement in the Chicago Tribune and posted photographs of the praise for Ayers’ book on Zombietime.com Saturday, October 18th.

Featured next to a smiling photograph of himself, then-State Senator Obama called Ayers’ book, “A Kind and Just Parent: Children of the Juvenile Court, “a “searing and timely account of the juvenile court system, and the courageous individuals who rescue hope from despair.”

The book, which details life at the Chicago Juvenile Court prison school, mentions Obama by name on page 82 when it describes Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood:

“Our neighbors include Muhammad Ali, former mayor Eugene Sawyer, poets Gwendolyn Brooks and Elizabeth Alexander, and writer Barack Obama. Minister Louis Farrakhan lives a block from our home and adds, we think, a unique dimension to the idea of ’safe neighborhood watch’: the Fruit of Islam, his security force, has an eye on things twenty-four-hours a day.“

The Obama campaign said the blurb was not a full-fledged review of the book, which is odd, because the quote Obama supplied to the publisher seems to be just that.

A month before the item appeared, on Nov. 20, 1997, Michelle Obama, then dean of student services and director of the University Community Service Center, held a panel at the University of Chicago that featured both Barack Obama and Ayers.

“Ayers will be joined by Sen. Barack Obama, Senior Lecturer in the Law School, who is working to combat legislation that would put more juvenile offenders into the adult system,” the University of Chicago Chronicle reported on Nov. 6, 1997.

Obama has been criticized for refusing to elaborate on the extent of his relationship with Ayers and for claiming to have had no idea Ayers was a co-founder of the Weather Underground, which claimed responsibility for bombing the Pentagon, U.S. Capitol and a New York Supreme Court justice’s home in the Sixties.

The Obama campaign has noted that Obama was 8 years old when Ayers and the Weather Underground were active and has no link to their activities, however Obama has yet to explain why he befriended Ayers as an adult, and participated in so many of his endeavors.  Ayers has said he has “no regrets” about his participation in the domestic terror group, and in fact has lamented they didn’t “do more” acts of terrorism.

“A Kind and Just Parent” was in stock at Amazon.com and ranked 51,273 in sales on Monday.

NOTE: For the skeptics out there, here is a contextual photo, showing where the Obama review came from look at lower left. This shows the entirety of page 5 of the Chicago Review book section on December 21, 1997. Obama’s review is visible at the lower left. (Hi-res version of this photo here.)

The Ties That Bind?

Report separates fact from fiction about Sen. Obama and his controversial associations like William Ayers, Rev. Wright, etc.

Greta Van Susteren reports, and entire special is available at: www.foxnews.com

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More Endorsements Roll McCain’s Way

The Dallas Morning News endorsed McCain on Oct. 18:

In better times, America could afford to consider entrusting the White House to an appealing newcomer like Mr. Obama and giving control of the presidency and Congress to the same party.

But in this time of great anxiety, the American people need a leader of experience guiding the ship of state. Mr. McCain offers the continuity, stability and sense of authority people want, as well as a decisive break from the Bush years.

The Democrat talks about change, but only the Republican has made change happen. Only one candidate has a solid record of standing up to his own party on principle and working hand in hand with legislators from the opposing party to get things done.

That candidate is John McCain, a progressive conservative we recommend.”

The Tampa (Fla.) Tribune endorsed McCain on Oct. 17:

Hard economic times, a disappointing Republican administration and the seductive promises of a master orator are pushing America toward a European-style social democracy. If you don’t want that to happen, vote for Republican Sen. John McCain. …

McCain brings a lifetime of useful experience, including his grueling captivity in Vietnam and long Senate service. He believes in federalism, a strong defense and disciplined self-interest.

McCain has been willing to cross party lines to work on tough problems. He co-authored a campaign finance law that failed to fulfill its objective, but he did muster the bipartisan support needed to try to control the buying and selling of public office. …

(Barack) Obama’s vision of hope shines like a rainbow, appealing but just out of reach. McCain’s call to freedom and responsibility is less exciting, but you know it works. The Tribune encourages voters to vote what they believe, not what they wish were true. The nation needs a stable leader in these unpredictable times.”

NY Times Under Fire for Cindy Story

The New York Times today has a very strange, lengthy front-page story on Cindy McCain — by Jodi Kantor and David Halbfinger — dredging up some unpleasant episodes in the distant past of her private life without adding any new information, sprinkling some innuendo about the McCains’ long-distance marriage, analyzing her personality and health mostly with pure speculation, and just generally dissecting her private and emotional sphere for no apparent reason beyond idle voyeurism.

Some of the facts discussed are, I suppose, arguably relevant (her connection to the Keating Five scandal and how Washington scorned her as a result of McCain’s ugly treatment of his first wife), but the vast bulk of the article, while quite invasive, seems indistinguishable from lowly, rank gossip.

The article doesn’t even arguably raise an issue of political bias, as the NYT has long been obsessed with the Clintons’ marriage and sex lives (one of the worst, though by no means only, examples being this 2006 sleazy, highly detailed front-page gossip item from Patrick Healy — entitled “For Clintons, Delicate Dance of Married and Public Lives” — “reporting” that “Mr. Clinton is rarely without company in public, yet the company he keeps rarely includes his wife” and that “Bill and Hillary Clinton have built largely separate lives” while chronicling the number of nights they’ve spent together).

But this Cindy McCain article does seem to suggest that there are no longer any standards governing when “political journalists” dig into the private and sex lives of political figures — and their family members — even when doing so lacks even a purported connection to some matter of public interest.

Who cares how many nights John and Cindy have spent together over the past couple of decades, or how affectionate they are with one another when sitting at home, or that — 15 years ago — she “was caught stealing drugs from her nonprofit organization to feed her addiction to painkillers,” or whether her 2004 separation from McCain was due (as she claimed) to a stroke, or whether their marriage is a union of convenience and business rather than true love, or whether she actually crossed into Rwanda from Zaire during a 1994 trip to help refugees, or how often his friends in DC interact with her socially? How is there a public interest in knowing any of that?

Way worse, in order to write the article, the NYT’s Kantor trolled Facebook and found adolescent classmates of Bridget McCain’s and — at least in one case — sent an email that said this: I’m a reporter at the New York Times, writing a profile of Cindy McCain, and we are trying to get a sense of what she is like as a mother. So I’m reaching out to fellow parents at her kids’ schools.

Is investigating Cindy McCain’s fitness as a mother actually a legitimate function for the political reporters at the NYT?   Doesn’t that question answer itself?

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Barack Obama – Something Less Than Truthful?

This has been posted on several blogs I have recently come across, so I figured…why not.  The points are legitimate, as is the accuracy of the “letter”.

“I care not of what others think I do, but I care very much about what I think of what I do. That is character!”

– Teddy Roosevelt

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To Barack Hussein Obama,

The New York Times carried a story on Saturday, October 4, 2008, that proved you had a significantly closer relationship with Bill Ayers than what you previously admitted.   While the issue of your relationship is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America about it.

The Chicago Sun reported on May 8, 2008, that FBI records showed that you had a significantly closer relationship with Tony Rezko than what you previously admitted.   In the interview, you said that you only saw Mr. Rezko a couple of times a year.   The FBI files showed that you saw him weekly.  While the issue of your relationship is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America about it.

Your speech in Philadelphia on March 18, 2008, about “race” contradicted your statement to Anderson Cooper on March 14 when you said that you never heard Reverend Wright make his negative statements about white America .   While your attendance at Trinity Church for 20 years is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America on March 14.

In your 1st debate with John McCain, you said that you never said that you would meet with the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, Iran, and North Korea without “preparations” at lower levels … Joe Biden repeated your words in his debate with Sarah Palin … while the video tape from your debate last February clearly shows that you answered “I would” to the question of meeting with those leaders within 12 months without “any” preconditions.  While your judgement about meeting with enemies of the USA without pre-conditions is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America in the debate with McCain.

On July 14, 2008, you said that you always knew that the surge would work while the video tapes of you from more than a year ago show that you stated that the surge would not work.   While your judgement about military strategy as a potential commander-in-chief is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America on July 14.

You now claim that your reason for voting against funding for the troops was because the bill did not include a time line for withdrawal, while the video tapes of you from more than a year ago show that you voted against additional funding because you wanted our troops to be removed immediately … not in 16 months after the 2008 election as you now claim.  While your judgement about removing our troops unilaterally in 2007 is of concern, the greater concern is that you lied to America about your previous position.

You claim to have a record of working with Republicans while the record shows that the only bill that you sponsored with a Republican was with Chuck Lugar … and it failed.  The record shows that you vote 97% in concert with the Democrat party and that you have the most liberal voting record in the Senate.  You joined Republicans only 13% of the time in your votes and those 13% were only after agreement from the Democrat party.  While it is of concern that you fail to include conservatives in your actions and that you are such a liberal, the greater concern is that you distorted the truth.

In the primary debates of last February, 2008, you claimed to have talked with a “Captain” of a platoon in Afghanistan “the other day” when in fact you had a discussion in 2003 with a Lieutenant who had just been deployed to Afghanistan .  You lied in that debate.

In your debates last spring, you claimed to have been a “professor of Constitutional law” when in fact you have never been a professor of Constitutional law.  In this last debate, you were careful to say that you “taught a law class” and never mentioned being a “professor of Constitutional law.”  You lied last spring..

You and Joe Biden both claimed that John McCain voted against additional funding for our troops when the actual records show the opposite. You distorted the truth.

You and Joe Biden claim that John McCain voted against funding for alternate energy sources 20 times when the record shows that John McCain specifically voted against funding for bio fuels, especially corn … and he was right ….  corn is too expensive at producing ethanol,  and using corn to make ethanol increased the price of corn from $2 a bushel to $6 a bushel for food.   You distorted the truth.

You and Joe Biden claim that John McCain voted like both of you for a tax increase on those making as little as $42,000 per year while the voting record clearly shows that John McCain did not vote as you and Joe Biden.   You lied to America .

You and Joe Biden claim that John McCain voted with George W. Bush 90% of the time when you know that Democrats also vote 90% of the time with the President (including Joe Biden) because the vast majority of the votes are procedural.  You are one of the few who has not voted 90% of the time with the president because you have been missing from the Senate since the day you got elected.   While your absence from your job in the Senate is of concern, the greater concern is that you spin the facts.

You did not take an active role in the rescue plan.  You claimed that the Senate did not need you while the real reason that you abstained was because of your close relationships with the executives of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Countrywide, and Acorn … who all helped cause the financial problems of today … and they all made major contributions to your campaign.   While your relationship with these executives and your protection of them for your brief 3 years in the Senate (along with Barney Frank, Chuck Schumer, Maxine Waters, and Chris Dodd) is of concern, the greater concern is that you are being deceitful.

You forgot to mention that you personally represented Tony Rezko and Acorn.  Tony Rezko, an Arab and close friend to you, was convicted of fraud in Chicago real estate transactions that bilked millions of tax dollars from the Illinois government for renovation projects that you sponsored as a state senator … and Acorn has been convicted of voter fraud, real estate sub prime loan intimidation, and illegal campaign contributions.  Tony Rezko has contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars to your political campaigns.  You personally used your political positions to steer money to both Tony Rezko and Acorn and you used Acorn to register thousands of phony voters for Democrats and you.  While your relationships with Rezko and Acorn are of concern, the greater concern is that you omitted important facts about your relationships with them to America .

During your campaign, you said: “typical white person.”  “They cling to their guns and religion.”  “They will say that I am black.”  You played the race card.  You tried to label any criticism about you as racist.  You divide America .

You claim that you will reduce taxes for 95% of America , but you forgot to tell America that those reductions are after you remove the Bush tax reductions.   You have requested close to $1 billion in earmarks and several million for Acorn.   Your social programs will cost America $1 trillion per year and you claim that a reduction in military spending ($100 billion for Iraq ) can pay for it.   While your economic plan of adding 30% to the size of our federal government is of concern, the greater concern is that you are deceiving America .

The drain to America ’s economy by foreign supplied oil is $700 billion per year (5% of GDP) while the war in Iraq is $100 billion (less than 1% of GDP).  You voted against any increases to oil exploration for the last 3 years and any expansion of nuclear facilities.  Yet today, you say that you have always been for more oil and more nuclear.  You are lying to America .

Mr. Obama, you claimed that you “changed” your mind about public financing for your campaign because of the money spent by Republican PACs in 2004.   The truth is that the Democrat PACs in 2004, 2006, and 2008  spent twice as much as the Republican PACs (especially George Soros and MoveOn.org).   You are lying to America .

Mr. Obama, you have done nothing to stop the actions of the teachers union and college professors in the USA .  They eliminated religion from our history.  They teach pro gay agendas and discuss sex with students as young as first grade.  They bring their personal politics into the classrooms.  They disparage conservatives.  They brainwash our children.  They are in it for themselves ….. not America .    Are you reluctant to condemn their actions because teachers/professors and the NEA contribute 25% of all money donated to Democrats and none to Republicans?  You are deceiving America .

Oh, Mr. Obama, Teddy Roosevelt said about a hundred years ago that we Americans should first look at the character of our leaders before anything else.
Your character looks horrible.  While you make good speeches, motivating speeches, your character does not match your rhetoric.  You talk the talk, but do not walk the walk.

1.  You lied to America .  You lied many times.  You distorted facts.  You parsed your answers like a lawyer.

2. You distorted the record of John McCain in your words and in your advertisements.

3.  You had associations with some very bad people for your personal political gains and then lied about those associations.

4.  You divide America about race and about class.

Now let me compare your record of lies, distortions, race baiting, and associations to John McCain:   War hero.  Annapolis graduate with “Country first.”   Operational leadership experience like all 43 previously elected presidents of the USA as a Navy officer for 22 years.  26 years in the Senate.  Straight talk.  Maverick.  54% of the time participated on bills with Democrats.  Never asked for an earmark.  The only blemish on his record is his part in the Keating 5 debacle about 25 years ago.

Mr. Obama, at Harvard Law School , you learned that the end does not justify the means.  You learned that perjury, false witness, dishonesty, distortion of truth are never tolerated.  Yet, your dishonesty is overwhelming.  Your dishonesty is tremendously greater than the dishonesty that caused the impeachment and disbarment of Bill Clinton.  Your dishonesty is tremendously greater than the dishonesty of Scooter Libby. You should be ashamed.

Mr. Obama, it is time for us Americans to put aside our differences on political issues and vote against you because of your dishonest character.   It is time for all of us Americans to put aside our political issues and vote for America first. It is time for America to vote for honesty.

Any people who vote for you after understanding that you are dishonest should be ashamed of themselves for making their personal political issues more important than character.  Would these same people vote for the anti-Christ if the anti-Christ promised them riches?   Would they make a golden calf while Moses was up the mountain?   Would they hire someone for a job if that someone lied in an interview?  Of course not.  So why do some of these people justify their votes for you even though they know you are dishonest?  Why do they excuse your dishonesty?   Because some of these people are frightened about the future, the economy, and their financial security …. and you are preying on their fears with empty promises  …. and because some (especially our young people) are consumed by your wonderful style and promises for “change” like the Germans who voted for Adolf Hitler in 1932.  The greed/envy by Germans in 1932 kept them from recognizing Hitler for who he was.   They loved his style.  Greed and envy are keeping many Americans from recognizing you … your style has camouflaged your dishonesty …. but many of us see you for who you really are   … and we will not stop exposing who you are every day,  forever if it is necessary.

Mr. Obama, you are dishonest.  Anyone who votes for you is enabling dishonesty.

Mr.  Obama , America cannot trust that you will put America first in your decisions about the future.

Mr. Obama, you are not the “change” that America deserves.  We cannot trust you.

Mr. Obama, You are not ready and not fit to be commander-in-chief.

Mr. Obama, John McCain does not have as much money as your campaign to refute all of your false statements.  And for whatever reasons, the mainstream media will not give adequate coverage or research about your lies, distortions, word parsing, bad associations, race baiting, lack of operational leadership experience, and generally dishonest character.  The media is diverting our attention from your relationships and ignoring the fact that you lied about those relationships.   The fact that you lied is much more important than the relationships themselves …. just like with Bill Clinton and Richard Nixon … Monica Lewinski and Watergate were not nearly as bad as the fact that those men lied about the events …  false witness … perjury …  your relationships and bad judgements are bad on their own …. but your lies are even worse.

Therefore, by copy of this memo, all who read this memo are asked to send it to everyone else in America before it is too late.  We need to do the job that the media will not do.  We need to expose your dishonesty so that every person in America understands who you really are before election day.

Mr. Obama, in a democracy, we get what we deserve.  And God help America if we deserve you.

Michael Master
McLean , Virginia

Obama’s Tax Policies Socialism

John McCain on Saturday kept up his attacks on Barack Obama’s tax policies, saying that he would turn the IRS into a giant welfare agency and likened his economic plan to socialism.

“At least in Europe, the Socialist leaders who so admire my opponent are upfront about their objectives,” McCain said in a radio address. “They use real numbers and honest language. And we should demand equal candor from Sen. Obama. Raising taxes on some in order to give checks to others is not a tax cut; it’s just another government giveaway.”

McCain has argued that 40 percent of Americans don’t pay income taxes, either because they are seniors or don’t meet minimum earnings thresholds, so the only way to cut their taxes is to give them various credits.

“In other words, Barack Obama’s tax plan would convert the IRS into a giant welfare agency, redistributing massive amounts of wealth at the direction of politicians in Washington,” McCain said in the radio address.

Liberal Supermajority?

What, exactly, can we expect if the liberals gain both houses of Congress and the Presidency? It appears there are no “moderate” Democrats left.

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Liberals Now Attacking “Joe the Plumber”

Two nights ago, “Joe the Plumber” was a symbol of the American dream. By Friday morning, you would have thought he was convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Did you know he owes back taxes? Or that he’s not actually a licensed plumber? And his first name’s not even really Joe, but Samuel? The “shocking” revelations spurred a litany of plumber putdowns in newspapers and liberal blogs across the country. “Joe the Plumber’s story sprang a few leaks,” The Associated Press reported. But does it really matter? No, Samuel “Joe” Wurzelbacher doesn’t have a plumbing license, but his employer does. His back taxes total less than $1,200. Not exactly Wesley Snipes.

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No Evidence of Obama Slur/Threat at Palin Rally

Investigators with the Secret Service say that there is no evidence that anyone shouted ‘kill him,’ in reference to Barack Obama, at a recent McCain-Palin rally.

U.S. Secret Service agents say that there is no evidence to support one reporter’s claim that any attendee at a McCain-Palin rally on Tuesday in Scranton, Pennsylvania shouted ‘kill him’ when Barack Obama’s name came up.

According to an October 15, 2008 article by the Andrew M. Seder that appeared in the TimesLeader.com website, which serves Northeastern Pennsylvania, the head of the Secret Service field office in Scranton says that there no evidence of this widely-reported verbal attack.

Scranton Times-Tribune Reporter (and Obama supporter) David Singleton originally reported the alleged verbal outburst on the newspaper’s website on Tuesday after he claimed to hear the remark at a McCain-Palin rally earlier in the day.

The paper printed the uncorroborated slur in their Wednesday edition and networks such as ABC and MSNBC as well as the Associated Press and the Washington Monthly repeated the allegation, according to the article by Seder, doing absolutely no fact checking of their own, of course.

The Times Leader.com article also indicated that Secret Service Agent Bill Slavoski interviewed Singleton, as well as 20 people who were at the rally, and no one but Singleton could corroborate the story. Slavoski, according to the article, said that Singleton was unable to provide a description of the man who allegedly made the remark.

However, Singleton and his newspaper are sticking to their story, according to the Seder article, even though there were thousands of people at the rally and Singleton was the only one who heard the threatening remark. http://tinyurl.com/3n9m8k

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Police State by Barack Obama

The Obama campaign (and workers) are only tolerant of those who think as they do, and have no trouble whatsoever demanding that contrary opinion be squashed.

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Annual Alfred Smith Dinner: McCain, Obama Roasted

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Edward Cardinal Egan is flanked by presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama at Thursday nights annual Al Smith dinner

Appropriately, Republican John McCain was seated to Edward Cardinal Egan’s right at Thursday night’s annual Al Smith Dinner – Democrat Barack Obama to his left. Donning white tie and tails, they put aside political rancor to roast and toast each other with equal relish.

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McCain got the ball rolling with a mock announcement that he had fired his entire team of high-priced advisers, as he once did last summer. “All of their positions will now be held by a man named Joe the Plumber,” deadpanned McCain, referring to real-life plumber Joe Wurzelbacher of Ohio, who became a minor star of the candidates’ final debate Wednesday.

As for those who question whether Joe would have enough money to pay his taxes under an Obama administration, McCain whispered that Joe “recently signed a very lucrative contract with a wealthy couple to handle all the work on all seven of their houses” – a reference to McCain’s many homes.

Obama got off his own zingers, beginning by telling the tuxedoed crowd that there is no other group in America that he would rather be “palling around” with, a dig at McCain ads asserting that Obama consorted with one-time radical William Ayers.

“It’s often been said that I share the politics of Alfred E. Smith,” said Obama, “and the ears of Alfred E. Neuman.” The Illinois senator also paid homage to the dinner’s location at the Waldorf-Astoria. “I hear from the doorstep, you can see all the way to the Russian Tea Room,” he cracked in a shot at GOP veep nominee Sarah Palin’s boast that she can see Russia from Alaska.

In another riff, Obama said “contrary to the rumors you have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-el, to save the planet Earth,” a shoutout to Superman.

With Mayor Bloomberg sitting just a few feet away, Obama also got in a dig at the mayor’s bid to seek a third term. “The mayor recently announced some news … by announcing he is going to be rewriting the rules and running for a third term, which caused Bill Clinton to say, ‘You can do that?’” joked Obama, causing the nearby Hillary Clinton to throw back her head in laughter.

But both men’s jokes ended with poignant salutes to each other for a battle well-fought, offering what amounted to a goodbye. The two men are not expected to share the same stage again this election.

“There was a time when a mere invitation of an African-American citizen to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage and an insult,” said McCain, adding, “I can’t wish my opponent luck, but I do wish him well.”

Said Obama, “There are very few of us that have served this country with the same dedication and honor and distinction as Senator McCain.”

The 63rd annual dinner, named in honor of the four-term governor of New York in the 1920s, raised $4 million for the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation. Smith’s great-grandson, Alfred Smith 4th, began the evening by joking that he hoped both vice presidential nominees, Palin and Democrat Joe Biden, would also attend. “But Sarah Palin is at the state troopers’ ball,” quipped Smith, “and Joe Biden couldn’t find a white tie and tails at Home Depot.”

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Record Of Recent ACORN Voter Fraud (Not Complete)

States in red have past investigations of ACORN voter fraud that were proved

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Recent Fraud

State	Year	Details
AR	1998	A contractor with ACORN-affiliated Project Vote was arrested for falsifying about 400 voter registration cards.
CO	2004	An ACORN employee admitted to forging signatures and registering three of her friends to vote 40 times.
	2005	Two ex-ACORN employees were convicted in Denver of perjury for submitting false voter registrations.
FL	2004	A Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokesman said ACORN was “singled out” among suspected voter registration groups for a 2004 wage initiative because it was “the common thread” in the agency’s fraud investigations.
MI	2004	The Detroit Free Press reported that “overzealous or unscrupulous campaign workers in several Michigan counties are under investigation for voter-registration fraud, suspected of attempting to register nonexistent people or forging applications for already-registered voters.” ACORN-affiliate Project Vote was one of two groups suspected of turning in the documents.
MO	2007	Four ACORN employees were indicted in Kansas City for charges including identity theft and filing false registrations during the 2006 election.
	2006	Eight ACORN employees in St. Louis were indicted on federal election fraud charges. Each of the eight faces up to five years in prison for forging signatures and submitting false information.
	2003	Of 5,379 voter registration cards ACORN submitted in St. Louis, only 2,013 of those appeared to be valid. At least 1,000 are believed to be attempts to register voters illegally.
NC	2004	North Carolina officials investigated ACORN for submitting fake voter registration cards.
NM	2005	Four ACORN employees submitted as many as 3,000 potentially fraudulent signatures on the group’s Albuquerque ballot initiative. A local sheriff added: “It’s safe to say the forgery was widespread.”
	2004	An ACORN employee registered a 13-year-old boy to vote. Citing this and other examples, New Mexico State Representative Joe Thompson stated that ACORN was “manufacturing voters” throughout New Mexico.
OH	2007	A man in Reynoldsburg was indicted on two felony counts of illegal voting and false registration, after being registered by ACORN to vote in two separate counties.
	2004	A grand jury indicted a Columbus ACORN worker for submitting a false signature and false voter registration form. In Franklin County, two ACORN workers submitted what the director of the board of election supervisors called “blatantly false” forms. In Cuyahoga County, ACORN and its affiliate Project Vote submitted registration cards that had the highest rate of errors for any voter registration group.
MN	2004	During a traffic stop, police found more than 300 voter registration cards in the trunk of a former ACORN employee, who had violated a legal requirements that registration cards be submitted to the Secretary of State within 10 days of being filled out and signed.
PA	2008	An ACORN employee in West Reading, PA, was sentenced to up to 23 months in prison for identity theft and tampering with records. A second ACORN worker pleaded not guilty to the same charges and is free on $10,000 bail.
	2004	Reading’s Director of Elections received calls from numerous individuals complaining that ACORN employees deliberately put inaccurate information on their voter registration forms. The Berks County director of elections said voter fraud was “absolutely out of hand,” and added: “Not only do we have unintentional duplication of voter registration but we have blatant duplicate voter registrations.” The Berks County deputy director of elections added that ACORN was under investigation by the Department of Justice.
TX	2004	ACORN turned in the voter registration form of David Young, who told reporters “The signature is not my signature. It’s not even close.” His social security number and date of birth were also incorrect.
VA	2005	In 2005, the Virginia State Board of Elections admonished Project Vote and ACORN for turning in a significant number of faulty voter registrations. An audit revealed that 83% of sampled registrations that were rejected for carrying false or questionable information were submitted by Project Vote. Many of these registrations carried social security numbers that exist for other people, listed non-existent or commercial addresses, or were for convicted felons in violation of state and federal election law. In a letter to ACORN, the State Board of Elections reported that 56% of the voter registration applications ACORN turned in were ineligible. Further, a full 35% were not submitted in a timely manner, as required by law. The State Board of Elections also commented on what appeared to be evidence of intentional voter fraud. “Additionally,” they wrote, “information appears to have been altered on some applications where information given by the applicant in one color ink has been scratched through and re-entered in another color ink. Any alteration of a voter registration application is a Class 5 Felony in accordance with § 24.2-1009 of the Code of Virginia.”
WA	2007	Three ACORN employees pleaded guilty, and four more were charged, in the worst case of voter registration fraud in Washington state history. More than 2,000 fraudulent voter registration cards were submitted by the group during a voter registration drive.
WI	2004	The district attorney’s office investigated seven voter registration applications Project Vote employees filed in the names of people who said the group never contacted them. Former Project Vote employee Robert Marquise Blakely told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he had not met with any of the people whose voter registration applications he signed, “an apparent violation of state law,” according to the paper.

Obama and ACORN: Relationship More Extensive Than Candidate Says

Twice in the last week, Barack Obama has said his relationship with ACORN — the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now — began and ended with legal work he did for the group in 1995.

The Democratic presidential candidate made his remarks in an effort to distance himself from the low-income advocacy group, which is under investigation for voter fraud in several states. But that assertion is subject to debate. Obama conducted training sessions for ACORN workers a decade ago, and his campaign also recently paid an ACORN subsidiary over $800,000 for “canvassing efforts”.

Plus his work with a group called Project Vote back in 1992 raises questions about whether he was involved with ACORN back then.

Project Vote was one of Obama’s earliest political successes. As director of Illinois Project Vote, Obama helped register 150,000 new voters in Chicago, and he was heralded for his efforts in local media. ACORN was also registering voters at that time, and its relationship with Project Vote casts some doubt on Obama’s statement that his involvement with ACORN didn’t begin until three years later.

Obama’s campaign Web site — in a section called “Fight the Smears” that is devoted to shooting down harmful rumors about his candidacy — states as “fact” that “ACORN was not part of Project Vote, the successful voter registration drive Barack ran in 1992.” The site also states, “Barack Obama never organized with ACORN.” Both statements appear to be blatant lies, at worst and at best deliberate obfuscation.

But accounts from the 1992 voter drive suggest the two groups were at least working alongside each other, if not together. A blogger for Obama’s campaign Web site in February wrote: “When Obama met with ACORN leaders in November, he reminded them of his history with ACORN and his beginnings in Illinois as a Project Vote organizer … Senator Obama said, ‘I come out of a grassroots organizing background. … Even before I was an elected official, when I ran (the) Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it.’”

Also, Chicago ACORN organizer Toni Foulkes wrote in the 2003 edition of the journal Social Policy that the two groups were working to register voters when Obama led the effort in Illinois. She wrote that Obama and Project Vote made it possible for Carol Moseley Braun to win her Senate seat in 1992, and that “Project Vote delivered 50,000 newly registered voters in that campaign (ACORN delivered about 5,000 of them).”

But ACORN spokesman Lewis Goldberg told FOXNews.com “there was no work done between Project Vote and ACORN” during the 1992 Chicago drive. “There was no financial intermingling,” he added. Goldberg said the groups, rather, conducted “parallel” efforts to register voters. Asked about the 1992 project, the Obama campaign referred FOXNews.com to a July letter to the editor in The Wall Street Journal from Sanford Newman, who was director of Project Vote in 1992. Newman wrote that Obama worked for his organization, not ACORN, and that “it wasn’t until after Mr. Obama’s tenure had ended that it began to conduct projects more frequently with ACORN than with other community-based organizations.”

He wrote that Project Vote “remains a separate organization today.” Goldberg also told FOXNews.com the two organizations are still separate, even though they now work together on voter registration. On that issue, the two organizations seem to have maintained a close and open relationship in recent years.

Project Vote announced last week that together with ACORN they registered over 1.3 million people to vote.  Project Vote is listed on the ACORN Web site as one of many “allied organizations.”  The two organizations also share an office address in Arkansas and Washington, D.C.  According to ACORN, the office-sharing is a cost-saving move done for “convenience.”

But as to Obama’s statement that his ties to ACORN are contained to his legal work, it has already been widely reported that his campaign paid more than $800,000 to a group called Citizens Services Inc., an ACORN subsidiary, to “augment” Obama’s grassroots organizing efforts in the Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania primaries.

His campaign maintains those efforts were for getting voters to the polls and not for voter registration, which is the sticking point of ongoing ACORN probes.

Goldberg also confirmed to FOXNews.com that Obama gave two training sessions over the course of three years in the late ’90s. He said each session lasted an hour or less.

Republicans say Obama can’t deny his relationship with ACORN. “[Obama's] relationship with ACORN is well-established,” said Republican National Committee spokesman Danny Diaz. “His comment is a fabrication.”

But Obama’s carefully worded statement regarding ACORN training on his “Fight the Smears” site appears to be true, as far as it goes.  The statement says ACORN never “hired” Obama “as a trainer, organizer or any type of employee.” And Goldberg said that, in fact, “Barack was not paid.” Diaz noted that Obama changed his Web site to reflect the training sessions — it previously said the Illinois senator was never an ACORN trainer. The word, “hired,” was added later, bringing to mind Bill Clinton’s torturous parsing as to what the word “is” is…..

more about “Obama and ACORN: Relationship More Ex…“, posted with vodpod

“Senator Obama…..”

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“Senator Obama, I am not President Bush. If you want to run against President Bush, you should have run four years ago.”

Fight!

Didn’t Obama say, at last night’s debate, that 100% of all McCain ads were negative smears?

Just another example of how Obama constantly lies and distorts…all with that snide grin on his face.

Examining the Causes of the Credit Crisis of 2008: A Primer

A House GOP report blames lack of Fannie, Freddie restructuring for credit crisis. While the GOP’ers declare the credit crisis to be a “complex phenonemon,” they place much of the blame on Congress’s inability to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

While this is not the complete Minority Report, it is the Executive Summary, and worth the rather lengthy read.  Reading it, you will have (at least) as good a grasp as most Members of Congress….

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Examining the Causes of the Credit Crisis of 2008

Minority Staff Analysis

U.S. House of Representatives

Committee on Oversight and Government Reform

Tom Davis, Ranking Member

October 6, 2008

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I. Executive Summary

In the midst of the most serious financial crisis in a generation, some claim that deregulation is entirely to blame. This is simply not true and more importantly serves to grossly oversimplify a problem whose roots run deep and involve myriad actors and issues. The simple truth is that many share the blame, and pointing to just one person or organization does a disservice to the American people.

In a time of crisis, the American people cannot afford the same old partisan finger pointing; they need and deserve real, non-partisan oversight. We need a series of hearings that will focus on the root causes and how we can fix a system in order to avoid financial meltdowns in the future. This minority staff analysis attempts to objectively explore the causes of the financial crisis we are in and how companies like Lehman Brothers and AIG contributed to this crisis.

The current credit crisis is a complex phenomenon with its roots in a number of places involving a myriad of people and institutions. Key players and institutions include Members of Congress, well-respected members of Republican and Democratic administrations, the Federal Reserve Board, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the major private sector credit rating agencies, banks, mortgage brokers, and consumers.

There is no single issue or decision one can trace as a cause of the current financial crisis; rather it was multiple decisions and issues involving many actors over time that led us to where we are today. However, we can point to organizations that contributed greatly to the problem and how their role was the catalyst for others to become involved and eventually fail. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac fall into this category. They were the central cancer of the mortgage market, which has now metastasized into the current financial crisis. With the help of a loose monetary policy at the Federal Reserve, an over-reliance on inaccurate risk assessment and a fractured regulatory system, this cancer spread throughout the financial industry.

A few key elements are critical in understanding how we got to where we are today.

The Role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in Creating the Credit Crisis

* If Congress had successfully restructured Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in 2005 after the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) reported on their fraudulent accounting activities, we would likely not be in the crisis we have today. The over $ 1 trillion dollar binge into subprime and mortgage backed securities that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac embarked upon from 2005 to 2007 would likely not have happened.

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* By 2005, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan was so concerned that he characterized the concentration of systemic risk inherent in the ever-growing portfolios of Fannie and Freddie as, placing the total financial system of the future at a substantial risk. Recent events have unfortunately proved him right.

* The transformation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into the Affordable Housing Center was a laudable goal, but to push predatory subprime lending to unspeakable heights and to encourage questionable lending practices believing housing prices would continue to soar was beyond reason.

* The politicization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac over the last decade seriously undermined the credibility of the organizations and prevented their restructuring and reform, with Democrats viewing any attempt at curtailing their behavior as an attempt at curtailing affordable housing. Between 1998 and 2008, Fannie and Freddie combined spent nearly $175 million lobbying Congress, and from 2000 to 2008 their employees contributed nearly $15 million to the campaigns of dozens of Members of Congress on key committees responsible for oversight of Fannie and Freddie. Those who opposed the restructuring of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were unwittingly helping to build a house of cards on risky mortgage backed securities.

* The motivations for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to gamble with taxpayer money on bad nonprime mortgage bets was not entirely a matter of good intentions gone awry. Greed and corruption were unfortunately part of the equation as well. The size and growth of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac leading up to their collapse were nothing short of astonishing. From 1990 to 2005, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac grew more than 944% to $1.64 trillion, and their outstanding liabilities grew 980% to $1.51 trillion. These liabilities were equal to 32.8% of the total publicly-held debt of the U.S. Government, which in 2005 stood at $4.6 trillion.

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Lehman Brothers, AIG and the Challenges of Statistical Risk Modeling

* Lehman Brothers didn’t cause this mess but it certainly jumped head first into trying to make money on securitizing mortgage-backed instruments. They followed on the heels of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and for precisely the same reasons. If we understand the initial cause of the cancer at Fannie and Freddie, then we can understand how it metastasized to Lehman Brothers, Wachovia, Countrywide, and beyond.

* AIG is somewhat different; bad management decisions were made in thinking that the mortgage-backed securities and derivatives could be insured. Yet underlying its bad decisions was the same mistaken reliance on sophisticated but inaccurate computer models, trusting the rating agencies were accurate and that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac couldn’t possibly fail.

Regulation and the Credit Crisis

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* Democrats are wrong in insisting that de-regulation is the primary cause of the financial crisis. Deregulation is not the problem, rather it is the fractured regulatory system that has banks, investment institutions, mortgage brokers, and insurance companies all being overseen by different and often competing federal and state agencies. The problem is a lack of coherent regulatory oversight that has led mortgage brokers and lending institutions to write questionable loans and investment institutions to play fast and loose with other peoples money in purchasing bad mortgage-backed assets.

* The words regulation and deregulation are not absolute goods and evils, nor are they meaningful policy prescriptions. They are political cant used to describe complex policy discussions that defy simplistic categorization. The key to successfully regulating markets is not to either create more or less regulation in an unthinking way. Government needs to design smart regulations that align the incentives of consumers, lenders and borrowers to achieve stable and healthy markets.

Credit Rating Agencies and the Practice of Rating Shopping

* Some firms that bundled subprime mortgages into securities were engaging in rating shopping – picking and choosing among each of the three credit rating agencies in order to find the one willing to give their assets the most favorable rating. Rating agencies willing to inflate their ratings on subprime mortgage-backed securities lobbied Congress to prohibit notching – the downgrading of assets that incorporate risky, unrated assets – by their competitors, on the grounds this constituted an anti-competitive practice. Unfortunately, the Republican Congress was swayed by this argument and codified it in law.

II. Mortgage Markets: A Primer

Prospective homebuyers apply for mortgages from primary market lenders such as banks, thrifts, mortgage companies, credit unions, and online lenders. Primary lenders evaluate borrowers ability to repay the mortgage based on an assessment of risk that combines such factors as income, assets and past performance in repaying loans. If a borrower does not meet the minimum requirement, the borrower is refused a loan.

Prime mortgages are traditionally the gold standard and go to borrowers with good credit who make down payments and fully document their income and assets. Borrowers with poor credit and/or uncertain income streams represent a higher risk of default for lenders and therefore receive subprime loans. Subprime loans have existed for some time but really took off in popularity around 1995, rising from less than 5% of mortgage originations in 1994 to more than 20% in 2006.  Borrowers who fall in between prime and subprime standards who may not be able to fully document their income or provide traditional down payments are sometimes referred to as near-prime borrowers. They generally can apply only for Alternative-A (Alt-A) mortgages.  Starting in 2001, subprime and near-prime mortgages increased dramatically as a proportion of the total mortgage market. These mortgages increased from only 9% of newly originated securitized mortgages in 2001 to 40% in 2006.

Subprime borrowers, in addition to being below the standard risk threshold lenders traditionally deemed creditworthy for mortgages, were increasingly taking advantage of so-called alternative mortgages that further increased the risk of default. For example, low- or zero-down payment mortgages permit borrowers who cannot afford the traditional 20% down payment on a house to still receive a loan. Instead some mortgages allow them to pay 10%, 5%, or even 3% of the purchase price of the home. The riskiest loans even allow borrowers to pay no money down at all for 100% financing. Another option is to allow borrowers to take out a piggyback or silent second loan – a second mortgage to finance the down payment. This is possible because the larger first mortgage means some lenders give borrowers a more favorable rate on the second mortgage. Interest-only mortgages are another alternative type that allows borrowers to for a time pay back only interest and no principal. However, either the duration of the mortgage must be extended or the payments amortize the remaining principal balance over a shorter period of time, increasing the monthly payment, and ultimately the total size of the loan, a borrower must repay. Negative amortization mortgages are even riskier, allowing borrowers to pay less than the minimum monthly interest payment, adding the remaining interest to the loan principal and again increasing the payments and size of the loan.

Adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) are the most common of the alternative mortgages. ARMs offer a low introductory mortgage rate (the cost of borrowing money for a home loan; it is generally related to the underlying interest rate in the macro economy) which then adjusts in the future by an amount determined by a pre-arranged formula. There are different formulae used to determine the new mortgage rate on an ARM, but in general one can think of these new rates as being related to the performance of the U.S. economy. If interest rates go down during the introductory period of the ARM, the adjusted mortgage rate will be lower, meaning the borrowers monthly payment will go down. If interest rates go up, the borrowers monthly payment will be larger. The prevalence of ARMs as a percentage of the total mortgage market increased dramatically during the housing bubble, from 12% in 2001 to 34% in 2004.

Unlike other alternative mortgages, however, there are sound reasons for borrowers to take out ARMs, under certain macroeconomic conditions. In 1984, for example, 61% of new conventional mortgages were ARMs. However, this was a rational response to the very high interest rates at that time. High interest rates translate into high mortgage rates. This meant that borrowers at that time were willing to bet that when their mortgage rates adjusted, they were likely to adjust downward due to falling interest rates. This was a sensible bet and one that turned out to be correct.

From 2001 to 2004, however, interest rates were abnormally low because the Federal Reserve led by Chairman Alan Greenspan lowered rates dramatically to pump up the U.S. economy following the attacks of September 11, 2001. Correspondingly, from 2004 to 2006, mortgage rates on 30-year fixed-rate mortgages were around 6%, relatively low by historical standards. Borrowers responding only to these macroeconomic conditions would have been wise to lock in these rates with a traditional 30-year fixed-rate mortgage. The continuing popularity of ARMs, at least until about 2004, relates in part to the abnormally wide disparity between short- and long-term interest rates during this period. Since ARMs tend to follow short-term rates, borrowers could get these mortgages at even lower costs and, as long as they were confident that housing prices would continue to rise, plan on refinancing before their ARMs adjusted upward.

Low short-term rates until 2004 are only part of the puzzle, however. By 2005 short-term interest rates were actually rising faster than long-term rates, yet ARMs remained very popular. By 2006 housing prices had started to slow significantly and yet introductory periods remained popular. In the words of a report by the Congressional Research Service, The persistence of nontraditional terms could be evidence that some borrowers intended to sell or refinance quickly – one indicator of speculative behavior. However, the report goes on to note that, in addition to speculation, alternative mortgages were marketed as affordability products to lower income and less sophisticated borrowers during the housing boom.  Some other force was clearly at work.

III. The Role of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in Creating the Credit Crisis

Successive Congresses and Administrations have used Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as tools in service to a well-intentioned policy to increase the affordability of housing in the United States. In the process, the U.S. Government created an incentive structure for Fannie and Freddie to facilitate the extension of risky nonprime and alternative mortgages to many borrowers with a questionable ability to pay these loans back. Ultimately, Fannie and Freddie may have purchased or guaranteed up to $1 trillion of risky nonprime mortgages. This, along with a healthy dose of unethical and corrupt behavior by the management of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, has contributed perhaps more than any other single factor to the growth of the subprime housing bubble from 2005 to 2007, which in turn was the root cause of the current financial crisis.

In the mortgage market, primary lenders may choose to hold a mortgage until repayment or they may sell it to the secondary mortgage market. If the primary lender sells the mortgage, it can use the proceeds from the sale to make additional loans to other homebuyers. This increase in the funding available to mortgage lenders to lend was the goal behind the creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Prior to the existence of the secondary mortgage market, there was no national U.S. mortgage market. Instead, the mortgage industry was mainly concentrated in urban centers, leaving broad swaths of the country unable to afford home financing. In response, Congress created the Federal National Mortgage Association, or Fannie Mae, in the National Housing Act of 1934 as a purely public agency. After a number of legislative iterations, Fannie Mae morphed into a private company, a government-sponsored enterprise (GSE), with no federal funding by 1970.

Final Debate: Complete Breakdown Of Obama’s Lies & Distortions

OBAMA DISTORTION #1: Barack Obama Will Cut Taxes For 95% Of American Taxpayers

Barack Obama once-again repeat the line that his tax plan means a tax cut for 95% of American taxpayers. This is NOT TRUE. Forty percent of Americans don’t pay income taxes but Barack Obama is proposing a refundable tax credit which “in the real world is known as ‘welfare.’”

The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel: Barack Obama Says He Will Cut Taxes For 95% Of Americans Even Though 40% Don’t Pay Taxes. “To kick off our show tonight, Mr. Obama will give 95% of American working families a tax cut, even though 40% of Americans today don’t pay income taxes! How can our star enact such mathemagic? How can he ‘cut’ zero? Abracadabra! It’s called a ‘refundable tax credit.’ It involves the federal government taking money from those who do pay taxes, and writing checks to those who don’t. Yes, yes, in the real world this is known as ‘welfare,’ but please try not to ruin the show.” (Kimberly Strassel, Op-Ed, “Obama’s Magic,” The Wall Street Journal, 10/10/08)

OBAMA DISTORTION #2: John McCains $5,000 Health Care Tax Credit Goes Directly To Insurance Companies, Leaving Families On Their Own To Pay McCains Tax On Health Insurance Benefits

Barack Obama once-again claimed that John McCain’s $5,000 health care tax credit goes directly to the insurance companies leaving families to pay a tax on health insurance benefits. This is NOT TRUE. If Barack Obama was honest about the health care system, he would conclude like PolitiFact that there is “excellent reason that the credit goes to the insurance companies.”

PolitiFact: “Excellent Reason That The Credit Goes To The Insurance Companies.” “But then the ad says, ‘McCains own Web site said it goes straight to the insurance companies, not to you, leaving you on your own to pay McCains health insurance tax.’ McCain’s Web site does say that, but there’s an excellent reason that the credit goes to the insurance companies. It’s so people don’t blow the tax credit on cigarettes and beer (or whatever else they’d like) instead of health insurance. Under McCain’s plan, workers would pay taxes on the health exemption, but they would get $2,500 knocked off their health insurance bill. If workers come out ahead and there’s money left over, that would go into a health spending account for them to spend on health-related incidentals.” (“McCain’s Plan Includes Tax Switch,” PolitiFact, 10/3/08)

OBAMA DISTORTION #3: John McCain’s Health Care Plan Will Hurt Middle-Income Families

Tonight, Barack Obama will once-again claim that John McCain’s health care plan will hurt middle-class families. This is NOT TRUE. According to independent third party sources, middle-class families would see a rise in after-tax income.

A Middle Class Family Under John McCain’s Plan Would See Their After-Tax Income Rise. “To take Biden’s comparison one step further, consider his $40,000 family whose insurance cost $12,000. That family is in the 15 percent tax bracket. So, multiplying that additional $12,000 in income by 15 percent means that the family in Biden’s example currently gets an $1,800 federal income-tax break. McCain’s tax break for that family would be $5,000.” (Kevin Freking, “Biden Misleads With Accusation Of Tax Increase,” The Associated Press, 9/26/08)

Tax Policy Center: “But Low- And Middle-Income Workers Would Still See A Rise In After-Tax Income.” “By 2018, high-income households would be worse off under McCain’s plan than they would have been under current law because the credit would be worth less than the current tax exclusion. But low- and middle-income workers would still see a rise in after-tax income, the center projected.” (Kevin Freking, “Biden Misleads With Accusation Of Tax Increase,” The Associated Press, 9/26/08)

OBAMA DISTORTION #4: John McCains Tax Plan Favors Oil Companies.

Tonight, Barack Obama will once-again claim that John McCain’s tax plan favors oil companies. This is NOT TRUE. John McCain’s tax plan favors all companies in the United States, will create jobs here, and is even being considered by Barack Obama.

FactCheck.org: Barack Obama Claim Is “Misleading” Because “McCain Is Not Proposing Any Special Tax Breaks For The Oil Industry.” “The ad’s claim that ‘McCain wants to give [oil companies] another $4 billion in tax breaks’ is also somewhat misleading. McCain is not proposing any special tax breaks for the oil industry. What he’s proposing is a reduction in the corporate income tax rate for all companies.” (Brooks Jackson And Emi Kolawole, “Obama’s Overstatement,” FactCheck.org, http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/obamas_overstatement.html, 8/4/08)

Obama Economic Policy Director Jason Furman: “[Barack Obama] Would Like To Cut The Corporate Tax Rate, And It’s A Question That We’re Studying.” “Here are two things you don’t often hear mentioned in the same sentence: Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and a lower corporate tax rate. But it appears the Illinois senator is at least considering such a measure. ‘He would like to cut the corporate tax rate, and it’s a question that we’re studying,’ Jason Furman, Obama’s director of economic policy, told Forbes.com in an interview this week. Obama’s Republican rival, Arizona Sen. John McCain, proposes to lower the maximum corporate tax rate from 35% to 25% (see: ‘McCain And The Economy’). Obama hasn’t made such a pledge, and Furman won’t say by how much or when Obama might slash corporate tax rates. But if it does happen, Furman says, ‘It’ll be much better for the economy and much better for businesses than what John McCain has proposed.’” (Brian Wingfield, “Obama’s Taxing Policies,” Forbes.com, 7/31/08)

OBAMA DISTORTION #5: John McCain Will Cut Social Security Benefits In Half

Tonight, Barack Obama may claim that John McCain will cut Social Security benefits in half. This is NOT TRUE. Numerous independent fact check organizations have said that Barack Obama is using this “false” charge “to frighten seniors.”

On September 19, 2008, FactCheck.org Criticized Obama-Biden For Launching A “False” Social Security Ad. “In a Sept. 19 article we criticized an Obama-Biden ad for its false insinuation that Sen. John McCain favored massive cuts in current Social Security benefits.” (Brooks Jackson, “More Social Security Spin,” FactCheck.org, 10/2/08)

On September 20, 2008, FactCheck.org Criticized Barack Obama For Making “False” Social Security Attacks On The Campaign Trail. “And in a Sept. 20 article we criticized Obama for claiming in a stump speech that Social Security recipients would have had their money tied up in the stock market if the plan McCain once endorsed had been enacted. That was also false.” (Brooks Jackson, “More Social Security Spin,” FactCheck.org, 10/2/08)

FactCheck.org: Obama Ad That Says The “Bush-McCain Privatization Plan” Will Cut Social Security Benefits In Half Is A “Falsehood Sure To Frighten Seniors.” “A new Obama ad characterizes the ‘Bush-McCain privatization plan’ as ‘cutting Social Security Benefits in half.’ This is a falsehood sure to frighten seniors who rely on their Social Security checks. In truth, McCain does not propose to cut those checks at all.” (Lori Robertson and Brooks Jackson, “Scaring Seniors,” FactCheck.org, http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/scaring_seniors.html, 9/19/08)

PolitiFact: Obama-Biden “Using Some Scare Tactics” On Social Security. “We also think Obama may have been guilty of using some scare tactics here.” (“Obama Overstates McCain’s Plan, Whatever That Is,” PolitiFact.com, 9/20/08)

DEBATE FACT #1: BARACK OBAMA HAS MUCH TALK BUT NO LEADERSHIP

Summary:.

Barack Obama talks about his economic leadership but he was “mum” on the crisis for weeks.

The Facts About Barack Obama:

Barack Obama Did Not Make Calls To Round Up Votes For The Economic Recovery Package

Obama Aides Concede Obama Did Not Make Calls To Round Up Votes. ABC’s JOHN BERMAN: “The McCain campaign has been hammering Obama suggesting he did not take a leading role in the financial negotiations.” SEN. MCCAIN: “At first, he didn’t want to get involved. Then, he was monitoring the situation.” BERMAN: “Indeed, Obama aides say he did not make any calls to help round up votes.” (ABC’s “Good Morning America,” 9/30/08)

Barack Obama “Hinted That Had He Known Earlier The Deal Was Going Down To Defeat He Would Have Worked The Phones Even Harder.” “Obama also hinted that had he known earlier the deal was going down to defeat he would have worked the phones even harder, especially given that some of those who voted no, were some of his early supporters.” (Lee Cowan, “Obama Places No Blame, But…” MSNBC’s “First Read” Blog, http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/09/30/1471678.aspx, Posted 9/30/08)

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) Said He Did Not Feel Pressure To Vote For The Bailout Bill. “Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., told me yesterday that he felt no pressure at all to vote for the bill. ‘For me it was an easy decision,’ Johnson said. ‘The bill has nothing in there that mandates workouts of these foreclosures that are pending. We have up to 5 million that are meant to occur over the next year.’” (Jake Tapper, “And What About Those 95 Democrats?” ABC News’ “Political Punch” Blog, http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2008/09/and-what-about.html, Posted 9/30/08)

Barack Obama Was “Mum” On The Financial Crisis

The Washington Times: “Obama Mum On Market Crisis.” “Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama opted Friday not to divulge details of his recovery plan for the financial crisis after a morning meeting with his top economic advisers – fearing it would stir Wall Street jitters.” (S.A. Miller, “Obama Mum On Market Crisis,” The Washington Times, 9/20/08)

Barack Obama “Opted Friday Not To Divulge Details Of His Recovery Plan For The Financial Crisis.” “Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama opted Friday not to divulge details of his recovery plan for the financial crisis after a morning meeting with his top economic advisers — fearing it would stir Wall Street jitters.” (S.A. Miller, “Obama Mum On Market Crisis,” The Washington Times, 9/20/08)

Fox News’ Major Garrett Reported That Barack Obama Would Not Take A Position On Whether Or Not He Supported Or Opposed The Government Rescue Of AIG. GARRETT: “On the biggest financial issue of the day, Barack Obama would not say if he supported or opposed the government-backed rescue of insurance giant AIG.” BARACK OBAMA: “We don’t know all the details of the arrangement with AIG and the Federal Reserve must ensure that plans protect the families that count on insurance.” GARRETT: “Obama also wants taxpayers protected but executives and shareholders exposed but on the central question to intervene or not, Obama sidestepped. Advisers said lack of details forced caution. The larger political truth: advisors believe anxiety alone is enough to lift Obama in the polls. That is why on the trail, Obama doesn’t talk about specifics of the moment but the nation’s overall direction.” (Fox News’ “The Special Report,” 9/17/08)

Joe Biden On The AIG Bailout: “It’s Hard To Judge That Right Now.” JOE BIDEN: “Its hard to second guess. I havent spoken with the Secretary. I mean theres no good answer because it was the spot the policies of the last eight years that put us in. So its hard to judge that right now, in my spot right here.” (ABC’s “Good Morning America,” 9/18/08)

3) DEBATE FACT #2: BARACK OBAMA HAS A STRONG TAX INCREASE AGENDA

Summary:.

Barack Obama has a strong tax increase agenda that will impact small businesses.

The Facts About The Obama-Biden Agenda And Barack Obama’s Record

Obama-Biden Has Called For Higher Income Taxes, Social Security Taxes, Capital Gains And Dividend Taxes, And Corporate Taxes, As Well As “Massive New Domestic Spending.” “Obama’s transformation, if you go by his campaign so far, would mean higher income taxes, higher Social Security taxes, higher investment taxes, higher corporate taxes, massive new domestic spending, and a healthcare plan that perhaps could be the next step to a full-scale, single-payer system. Is that what most Americans want, someone who will fulfill a Democratic policy wish list?” (James Pethokoukis, “Barack Hussein Reagan? Ronald Wilson Obama?” U.S. News & World Report’s “Capital Commerce” Blog, 2/12/08)

Obama-Biden Will Increase Capital Gains And Dividend Taxes. Obama Economic Advisors Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee: The top capital-gains rate for families making more than $250,000 would return to 20% The tax rate on dividends would also be 20% for families making more than $250,000, rather than returning to the ordinary income rate. (Jason Furman and Austan Goolsbee, Op-Ed, The Obama Tax Plan, The Wall Street Journal, 8/14/08)

Tax Policy Center: Obama-Biden Would Raise Taxes On One Out Of Every Three Senior Households. “Even though Senator Obama’s plan eliminates individual income taxes for seniors with incomes less than $50,000, his plan would raise taxes for almost 10 million senior households, over a third of the total (not shown in table). On average, seniors would face a tax increase of about 2 percent of income.” (Burman et al., “A Preliminary Analysis of the 2008 Presidential Candidates’ Tax Plans,” The Tax Policy Center, 6/11/08)

Obama-Biden Would Raise Income Taxes. Obama: “[I] would roll back the Bush tax cuts for those making over $250,000.” (Sen. Barack Obama, CNN Democrat Presidential Candidate Debate, Manchester, NH, 6/3/07)

U.S. Department Of Treasury: Small Business Owners “Are Frequently Subject To The Highest Individual Income Tax Rates.” (“Topics Related To The President’s Tax Relief,” U.S. Department Of Treasury, http://www.ustreas.gov/press/releases/reports/president_taxrelief_topics_0508.pdf, May 2008)

Obama-Biden Would Raise Social Security Taxes. “Obama’s proposal would impose social security taxes on income above $250,000 per year. He would continue to exempt income between $102,000 and $250,000 from social security taxes.” (Teddy Davis, Sunlen Miller, and Gregory Wallace, “Obama Kisses Billions Goodbye,” ABC News’ “Political Radar” Blog, blogs.abcnews.com http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/06/obama-kisses-bi.html, 6/18/08)

Obama-Biden Called For A Tax On Coal And Natural Gas. Obama: “What we ought to tax is dirty energy, like coal and, to a lesser extent, natural gas.” (“Q&A With Sen. Barack Obama,” San Antonio Express-News, 2/19/08)

Obama-Biden Called For A Tax On Oil. Obama: “I think it is appropriate for us to impose a windfall profits tax on our oil companies.”(Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks At A Campaign Event, Charlotte, NC, 5/2/08)

The Washington Post: Barack Obama’s Tax On Oil Companies Will Only Lead To “Higher Prices At The Pump.” (Editorial, “Tapping Tired Wells,” The Washington Post, 8/6/08)

FactCheck.org: “Obama’s Votes Indicate A Willingness To Raise Taxes.” “Certainly Obama’s votes indicate a willingness to raise taxes, and Obama has not been shy about saying explicitly that he will raise some taxes.” (“The $32,000 Question,” FactCheck.org, http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/the_32000_question.html, 7/8/08)

4) DEBATE FACT #3: BARACK OBAMA IS “MISLEADING” ON TAX CUTS FOR OIL COMPANIES

Summary:.

Barack Obama is wrong when he says John McCain supports tax cuts for oil companies.

The Facts About Barack Obama’s Record:

Barack Obama’s Claim Is “Misleading” According To Non-Partisan Fact-Check Organizations

FactCheck.org: Barack Obama Claim Is “Misleading” Because “McCain Is Not Proposing Any Special Tax Breaks For The Oil Industry.” “The ad’s claim that ‘McCain wants to give [oil companies] another $4 billion in tax breaks’ is also somewhat misleading. McCain is not proposing any special tax breaks for the oil industry. What he’s proposing is a reduction in the corporate income tax rate for all companies.” (Brooks Jackson And Emi Kolawole, “Obama’s Overstatement,” FactCheck.org, http://www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/obamas_overstatement.html, 8/4/08)

PolitiFact: Obama’s Statement “Barely True,” As Obama Is “Cherry-Picking” On Tax Cut, As “The Corporate Tax Rate Reduction Would Apply To ALL Corporations.” “Obama is cherry-picking here. The corporate tax rate reduction would apply to ALL corporations. Yes, Exxon Mobil, but also to Wal-Mart, General Motors and Home Depot, to name a few of the other Fortune 50 biggies. Even everybody’s favorite, Starbucks, would get the same tax break. Obama’s statement is technically true, but singling out oil companies suggests McCain has targeted oil companies for tax breaks. He hasn’t. We rate Obama’s statement, and the claim in the ad, Barely True.” (“Big Oil, Like All Companies, Would Get Tax Break,” PolitiFact.com http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/563/, Accessed 8/4/08)

Barack Obama Said That He Too Supports Cutting Taxes For Corporations

In A Wall Street Journal Interview, Barack Obama Said That He Was Considering Lowering Corporate Taxes. “Sen. Obama’s nod to lowering corporate taxes comes as Republicans have been attacking him for proposals that would raise the cost of doing business, such as his pledge to raise the tax rate on capital gains, and his vow to increase the top income-tax rates, which are often used by small, unincorporated enterprises. He didn’t say how deeply he would cut the rate, but said it could be trimmed in return for reducing corporate tax breaks, simplifying the tax system.” (Bob Davis and Amy Chozick, “Obama Plans Spending Boost, Possible Cut In Business Tax,” The Wall Street Journal, 6/17/08)

Obama Economic Policy Director Jason Furman: “[Barack Obama] Would Like To Cut The Corporate Tax Rate, And It’s A Question That We’re Studying.” (Brian Wingfield, “Obama’s Taxing Policies,” Forbes.com, 7/31/08)

Barack Obama Voted For The 2005 Energy Bill Containing Billions In Tax Breaks For Big Oil

Barack Obama Voted For The 2005 Energy Bill. (H.R. 6, CQ Vote #152: Motion Agreed To 92-4: R 53-1; D 38-3; I 1-0, 6/23/05, Obama Voted Yea; H.R. 6, CQ Vote #158: Passed 85-12: R 49-5; D 35-7; I 1-0, 6/28/05, Obama Voted Yea; H.R. 6, CQ Vote #213: Adopted 74-26: R 49-6; D 25-19; I 0-1, 7/29/05, Obama Voted Yea)

The 2005 Energy Bill Included $2.8 Billion In Subsidies For Oil And Natural Gas Production. “The conference agreement provides for $14.6 billion in tax breaks and credits between 2005 and 2015, including: — $2.8 billion for fossil fuel production…” (Toni Johnson, “CQ Bill Analysis: HR 6,” Congressional Quarterly’s “CQ Bill Analysis,” www.cq.com: http://www.cq.com/, Accessed 7/14/08)

Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY): “When It Came Time To Stand Up Against The Oil Companies, To Stand Against Dick Cheney’s Energy Bill, My Opponent Voted For It And I Voted Against It.” (Aaron Burns, “Clinton Questions Obama’s Oil Company Claims,” Fox News’ “Embeds” Blog, 4/25/08)

5) DEBATE FACT #4: WHAT IS 95%?

Summary:.

Barack Obama is talking about 95% but it is misleading.

The Facts About Barack Obama’s Record:

The Wall Street Journal’s Kimberly Strassel:Barack Obama Says He Will Cut Taxes For 95% Of Americans Even Though 40% Don’t Pay Taxes. “To kick off our show tonight, Mr. Obama will give 95% of American working families a tax cut, even though 40% of Americans today don’t pay income taxes! How can our star enact such mathemagic? How can he ‘cut’ zero? Abracadabra! It’s called a ‘refundable tax credit.’ It involves the federal government taking money from those who do pay taxes, and writing checks to those who don’t. Yes, yes, in the real world this is known as ‘welfare,’ but please try not to ruin the show.” (Kimberly Strassel, Op-Ed, “Obama’s Magic,” The Wall Street Journal, 10/10/08)

Tax Policy Center: Over 10 Years, Barack Obama Will Devote $1.05 Trillion To Households Paying No Income Tax – An Additional $647.51 Than Under Current Law. (Table T08-0191, “Senator Barack Obama’s Non-Health Tax Proposals As Described By His Economic Advisors: Impact On Outlays And Tax Units With No Individual Income Tax Liability, 2009-18,” Tax Policy Center, 7/25/08)

Tax Policy Center: Under Obama’s Plan, He Would Direct $100.6 Billion In 2009 To Households Who Pay No Income Tax. (Table T08-0191, “Senator Barack Obama’s Non-Health Tax Proposals As Described By His Economic Advisors: Impact On Outlays And Tax Units With No Individual Income Tax Liability, 2009-18,” Tax Policy Center, 7/25/08)

According To The Tax Foundation, Under The Obama Tax Plan 63 Million Americans “Would Have No Income Tax Liability And Most Of Those Would Get A Check From The IRS Each Year.” “The Tax Foundation estimates that under the Obama plan 63 million Americans, or 44% of all tax filers, would have no income tax liability and most of those would get a check from the IRS each year.” (Editorial, “Obama’s 95% Illusion,” The Wall Street Journal, 10/13/08)

The Wall Street Journal: Barack Obama’s Tax Plan Has “Several Sleights Of Hand.” “It’s a clever pitch, because it lets him pose as a middle-class tax cutter while disguising that he’s also proposing one of the largest tax increases ever on the other 5%. But how does he conjure this miracle, especially since more than a third of all Americans already pay no income taxes at all? There are several sleights of hand, but the most creative is to redefine the meaning of ‘tax cut.’” (Editorial, “Obama’s 95% Illusion,” The Wall Street Journal, 10/13/08)

New York Post: “[O]bama’s ‘Tax Cuts’ Really Amount To A Sizable Expansion Of Welfare.” “In other words, Obama’s ‘tax cuts’ really amount to a sizable expansion of welfare. That leaves American taxpayers to foot the bill – both directly, and through the lost economic opportunity that’s sure to follow Obama’s promised tax hikes on income, dividends and capital gains.” (Editorial, “Ready, Set Spend!” New York Post, 10/14/08)

The Washington Times’ Donald Lambro: Some Say Barack Obama’s Tax Plan Looks “Suspiciously Like Welfare.” “Barack Obama says he will give 95 percent of all American workers a tax cut but does not mention that his plan would send checks to tens of millions of tax filers who pay no personal income taxes – payments that critics say look ’suspiciously like welfare.’” (Donald Lambro, “Obama Tax Cut ‘Refunds’ Those Who Don’t Pay,” The Washington Times, 10/13/08)

Americans For Tax Reform: “‘Refundable Tax Credits’ Means That If You Zero Out Your Income Tax Liability, The Government Gives You A Welfare Check. This Isn’t An Income Tax Cut-It’s Spending.” “Most of the ‘tax cuts’ Obama claims credit for is in fact spending. ‘Refundable tax credits’ means that if you zero out your income tax liability, the government gives you a welfare check. This isn’t an income tax cut-it’s spending. According to the Tax Foundation, one-third of households don’t have an income tax liability.” (Americans For Tax Reform, “Americans For Tax Reform Calls Obama ‘Tax Calculator’ Inaccurate And Misleading,” Press Release, 10/14/08)

6) DEBATE FACT #5: WHO IS JOE THE PLUMBER?

“That’s the American Dream to me. You work hard. Youre going to get what you want eventually. It’s not going to happen overnight by no means, but if you work hard enough you will get it. I resent the government or Obama’s plan to take more away from me.” - Joe Wurzelbacher, AKA Joe The Plumber

Watch Joe here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpZLMPoQ8VI

FOX News’ “Your World”

October 14, 2008

Neil Cavuto: “Well, you know, you’re the type of guy who these tax increases of his could affect, or with a cutoff that his could affect, and you don’t fit this gazillionaire model. In other words, you’re not the Henry Kravis types, but you’re in that group that would see your taxes hiked. What do you think of that?”

Joe Wurzelbacher: “Well, it’s, you know – I don’t know how much of the video is shown, but I’m living in a simple middle-class home. Most of the homes go from anywhere from $90,000 at the lowest to maybe $140,000 at the highest. You know, just working, and when I do purchase the rest of this company and move forward, I will be living there still, because, one, I don’t want to keep up with the Joneses, and two, I just couldn’t really afford a bigger house. Im going to have to work harder to make that company go. I want to put more trucks on the road and his tax increases kind of hurts that aspect.”

Cavuto: “Some people interpreted his remark as sort of like Robin Hood-ish, Joe, that it was a redistribution of wealth. Taking from guys like you to help people who are not as well off as you. What do you think of that?”

Wurzelbacher: “Robin Hood stole from greedy rich people and redistributed it to the peasants, so to speak, so if hes calling us peasants, I kind of resent that. I’m the same class of people that went from paycheck to paycheck living to finally being able to save some money, and its just – you work and hard work. That’s the American Dream to me. You work hard. Youre going to get what you want eventually. It’s not going to happen overnight by no means, but if you work hard enough you will get it. I resent the government or Obama’s plan to take more away from me.”

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpZLMPoQ8VI The FOX News Report

DEBATE FACT #6: BARACK OBAMA HAS NO INTEREST IN REDUCING THE DEFICIT

Summary:.

Barack Obama talks about priorities but he has proposed billions in new spending with no way to pay for it.

The Facts About Barack Obama’s Record:

If Barack Obama Could Enact All Of His Campaign Proposals, Taxpayers Would Be Faced With Financing Over $1 Trillion In New Spending Over One White House Term. (Barack Obama’s Spending Proposals: http://www.barackobama.com/index.php, Accessed 8/19/08)

PolitiFact Discredits Obama’s Claim That His Proposals Are Paid For; Says His Rhetoric Is “Disingenuous.” “Until he fleshes out his economic plan considerably more, it’s disingenuous to go around claiming his proposals are ‘paid for.’ And that claim is even more suspect considering that his proposals would leave a larger deficit than would the tax laws currently on the books. We find his claim to be Barely True.” (“‘Paid For’ Without Real Money,” St. Petersburg Times’ “PolitiFact.com,” www.politifact.com http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/533/, 6/16/08)

The New York Times’ David Brooks Said For Barack Obama To Fund His Domestic Programs, He Will Have To Break His Pledge Not To Tax The Middle Class. “Both [Obama and Clinton] promised to not raise taxes on those making less than $200,000 or $250,000 a year. They both just emasculated their domestic programs. Returning the rich to their Clinton-era tax rates will yield, at best, $40 billion a year in revenue. It’s impossible to fund a health care plan, let alone anything else, with that kind of money. The consequences are clear: if elected they will have to break their pledge, and thus destroy their credibility, or run a minimalist administration.” (David Brooks, Op-Ed, “No Whining About The Media,” The New York Times, 4/16/08)

Chicago Tribune: Barack Obama Hasn’t Been Talking About Balancing The Budget And “Has A Full Plate Of Spending Initiatives.” “Obama’s campaign on Monday scoffed at the McCain proposals. But Obama hasn’t been talking boldly about the certain path to a balanced budget. He promises to cut taxes for most Americans . . . and he has a full plate of spending initiatives.” (Editorial, “Failure Of Nerve,” Chicago Tribune, 7/8/08)

Los Angeles Times: Barack Obama “Has Not Identified New Revenue Sources Or Spending Cuts To Pay For Some Of” His Proposals. “The Obama campaign responds that tax cuts, once enacted, are usually renewed and do not expire. Therefore, they say, Obama can legitimately claim to be recouping money for other purposes by scaling back the tax cuts. Obama has not identified new revenue sources or spending cuts to pay for some of what he wants to do.” (Peter Nicholas, “Adding Up The Cost Of Obama’s Agenda,” Los Angeles Times, 7/8/08)

ABC News: Barack Obama Can Not “Pay For Every Dime” Of New Spending He Has Proposed. “Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., said during Friday’s presidential debate that he would ‘pay for every dime’ of his spending. But according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, ‘without substantial cuts in government spending’ Obama’s plan – and McCain’s, too -’would substantially increase the national debt over the next ten years.’ The Tax Policy Center has estimated that Obama’s proposed tax policies would increase the debt by $3.5 trillion over ten years.” (“Fact Check: ‘Pay for Every Dime’? Not Quite,” ABC News’ “Political Radar” Blog, http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/09/fact-check-pay.html, Posted 9/26/08)

Barack Obama Has No Interest In Eliminating Deficit Spending

Barack Obama: “I Do Not Make A Promise That We Can Reduce [The Budget Deficit] By 2013.” “‘I do not make a promise that we can reduce it by 2013 because I think it is important for us to make some critical investments right now in America’s families,’ Obama told reporters this week when asked if he’d match McCain’s pledge.” (Nedra Pickler, “Analysis: Obama Won’t Try For McCain’s Budget Goal,” The Associated Press, 7/8/08)

Chicago Tribune: Barack Obama Has “No Interest In Eliminating Deficit Spending.” “Since winning the nomination, Obama reportedly has been moving toward the middle of the political spectrum. But on the budget, he still sounds left of center, with no interest in eliminating deficit spending.” (Editorial, “Failure Of Nerve,” Chicago Tribune, 7/8/08)

DEBATE FACT #7: BARACK OBAMA VOTED WITH BUSH “FOR THE MOST PART”

DEBATE FACT #7: BARACK OBAMA VOTED WITH BUSH “FOR THE MOST PART”

Summary:.

Why is it that Barack Obama says he voted with President Bush “for the most part”?

The Facts:

“Factually Inaccurate” To Say McCain Is Like President Bush

The New York Times‘ David Brooks: Democrats Saying McCain Represents The Third Bush Term Are “Just Factually Inaccurate.” “Finally, the Obama people are too convinced that they can define McCain as Bush III. The case is just factually inaccurate. McCain will be able to pull out dozens of instances, from torture to global warming to spending, in which he broke with his party, as Rush Limbaugh will tell you.” (David Brooks, Op-Ed, “Calling Dr. Doom,” The New York Times, 6/3/08)

Seattle Times‘ Danny Westneat: “This Guy Ain’t Bush, Folks.” “I have been feeling out of step lately with my fellow Seattle liberals. The reason is that when politics comes up, the knee-jerk gist of the conversation is that John McCain equals George W. Bush. This guy ain’t Bush, folks. No matter how many times you say it. (And it is said incessantly by Democratic groups.)” (Danny Westneat, Op-Ed, “Beyond The Bush Formula,” The Seattle Times, 5/14/08)

Barack Obama Says He Voted With President Bush “For The Most Part”

Barack Obama Says He Voted With President Bush “For The Most Part.” REPORTER: “For a couple of days, they’ve been saying you voted to raise taxes something like 94 times. That seems to be the drumbeat that’s going to happen during this campaign. Are you going to raise taxes in a big way for average Americans?” OBAMA: “I mean this is the standard fare of politics. And the truth of the matter is that the only bills that I voted for, for the most part, since I’ve been in the Senate were introduced by Republicans with George Bush. You know, they were the majority for a big chunk of the time I was there.” (KMOV [St. Louis, MO], 6/10/08)

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhST5Nuw6bc Barack Obama’s KMOV Interview

In 2004, Barack Obama Said There Wasn’t Much Difference Between His Iraq Position And President Bush’s

In 2004, Barack Obama Said There Was Not Much Of A Difference Between His Position And The President’s Position On Iraq. “‘On Iraq, on paper, there’s not as much difference, I think, between the Bush administration and a Kerry administration as there would have been a year ago,’ Obama said. ‘There’s not much of a difference between my position and George Bush’s position at this stage.’” (John Kass, “Obama’s A Star Who Doesn’t Stick To The Script,” Chicago Tribune, 7/27/04)

In 2005, Barack Obama Joined With President Bush To Pass The Bush-Cheney Energy Bill Giving The Oil Companies $2.8 Billion In Taxpayer Money:

Barack Obama Voted For The 2005 Bush-Cheney Energy Bill. (H.R. 6, CQ Vote #152: Motion Agreed To 92-4: R 53-1; D 38-3; I 1-0, 6/23/05, Obama Voted Yea; H.R. 6, CQ Vote #158: Passed 85-12: R 49-5; D 35-7; I 1-0, 6/28/05, Obama Voted Yea; H.R. 6, CQ Vote #213: Adopted 74-26: R 49-6; D 25-19; I 0-1, 7/29/05, Obama Voted Yea)

The 2005 Energy Bill Included $2.8 Billion In Subsidies For Oil And Natural Gas Production. “The conference agreement provides for $14.6 billion in tax breaks and credits between 2005 and 2015, including: — $2.8 billion for fossil fuel production…” (Toni Johnson, “CQ Bill Analysis: HR 6,” Congressional Quarterly’s “CQ Bill Analysis,” www.cq.com: http://www.cq.com/, Accessed 7/14/08)

9) DEBATE FACT #8: A FALSE CLAIM OF BIPARTISANSHIP FROM OBAMA

Summary:.

Barack Obama talks about reaching across the aisle but he hasn’t done so in the Senate.

The Facts About Barack Obama’s Record:

The Associated Press: “None” Of Barack Obama’s Touted Bipartisan Efforts Paced Him “At Odds With The Leaders Of His Own Party Or Gave Significant Offense To Outside Interest Groups With Democrats.” (David Espo, “Bipartisanship Marks McCain’s Senate Tenure,” Associated Press, 7/2/08)

NPR’s Juan Williams: Barack Obama “Doesn’t Have The Record” Of Bipartisanship That John McCain Has. NPR’S JUAN WILLIAMS: “You think about everything from campaign finance to immigration and on, and there’s John McCain working across party lines. Senator Obama doesn’t have a record. Now, he can make the claim and he can hold himself up as pure and trying to reach to a new generation of post partisan politics, but he has to do so largely based on rhetoric and wishful thinking because he doesn’t have the record.” (Fox News’ “Special Report With Brit Hume,” 5/7/08)

The Washington Post’s Richard Cohen: “There Is Scant Evidence The Illinois Senator Takes Positions That Challenge His Base Or Otherwise Threaten Him Politically.” (Richard Cohen, Op-Ed, “McCain’s Core Advantage,” The Washington Post, 6/24/08)

Politico’s Jonathan Martin: “He’s Pretty Much A Conventional Liberal On The Issues And Has Few Examples Of Breaking With His Own Party, So How Does Obama Try To Pull Off Being ‘Post-Partisan?’” (Jonathan Martin, “Obama’s Third Way: It’s All In The Tone,” Politico, 6/30/08)

Rep. Dan Boren (D-OK): “His Record Does Not Reflect Working In A Bipartisan Fashion.” “Boren, the lone Democrat in Oklahoma’s congressional delegate, said that while Obama has talked about working with Republicans, ‘unfortunately, his record does not reflect working in a bipartisan fashion.’” (Tim Talley, “Okla. Dem Calls Obama Liberal, Declines To Endorse,” The Associated Press, 6/10/08)

The Weekly Standard’s Fred Barnes: “Despite Polarization, The Senate Is An Opportunity-Rich Environment For Bipartisan Compromise. But Obama Has Never Been A Leader In Crossing The Aisle.” (Fred Barnes, “To Tell The Truth,” The Weekly Standard, 4/26/08)

“The Record Shows Obama To Be A Fairly Doctrinaire Liberal Democrat” (Editorial, “Obama’s Rhetoric Soars, But What Does His Record Suggest?” USA Today, 1/28/08)

In 2007, Obama Voted With The Democrat Party 97 Percent Of The Time. (Congressional Quarterly Website, www.cq.com http://www.cq.com/, Accessed 3/3/08)

10) DEBATE FACT #9: THE OBAMA-AYERS RELATIONSHIP

Summary:

Bill Ayers is much more than a someone Barack Obama knows from a board.

The Facts About Barack Obama’s Relationship:

First, Barack Obama Only Said “This Is A Guy Who Lives In My Neighborhood.” “This is a guy who lives in my neighborhood, who’s a professor of English in Chicago, who I know and who I have not received some official endorsement from. He’s not somebody who I exchange ideas from on a regular basis.” (Sen. Barack Obama, ABC Democratic Presidential Debate, Philadelphia, PA, 4/16/08)

Barack Obama’s Relationship With Ayers “Went Much Deeper, Ran Much Longer And Was Much More Political Than Obama Said.” CNN’S DREW GRIFFIN: “Barack Obama confirmed during a primary debate that he knew Ayers and when pressed, said they served on a charitable foundation board together. And Obama condemned Ayers support of violence. But the relationship between Obama and Ayers went much deeper, ran much longer, and was much more political than Obama said.” (CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360,” 10/6/08)

Mayor Richard Daley On Ayers And Obama’s Relationship: “They’re Friends. So What?” “Obama says he was 8 years old when the bombs went off. But he was a grown man when he sought Ayers’ political blessing, and when they worked on the same education projects. ‘They’re friends. So what?’ Mayor Daley said in August.” (John Kass, “Daley Reins In Radicals – The Chicago Way,” Chicago Tribune, 10/12/08)

Axelrod Has Previously Said Obama And Ayers Are “Certainly Friendly.” AXELROD: “They’re certainly friendly, they know each other, as anyone whose kids go to school together.” (Ben Smith, “Ax On Ayers,” www.politico.com: http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0208/Ax_on_Ayers.html, 2/26/08)

In 1995, When Barack Obama Was 34, During Barack Obama’s First State Senate Campaign, William Ayers And Wife Bernadine Dohrn Hosted A Meeting Of Chicago Liberals At Their Home For Obama, Which One Attendee Said Was Aimed At “Launching Him.” “In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district’s influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.” (Ben Smith, “Obama Once Visited ’60s Radicals,” The Politico, 1/22/08)

From March Of 1995 Until September Of 1997, Barack Obama And Ayers Attended At Least Seven Meetings Together Relating To The Chicago Annenberg Challenge. (Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Board Of Directors Meeting, Minutes Of The Board, 3/15/95, 3/31/95, 4/13/95, 6/5/95, 9/30/97; National Annenberg Challenge Evaluation Meeting, List Of Participants, 5/24/95; Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Chicago School Reform Collaborative Meeting, Minutes, 10/23/96)

In 1997, Barack Obama Praised Ayers’ Book On The Juvenile Justice: “A searing and timely account of the juvenile court system, and the courageous individuals who rescue hope from despair.” (Chicago Tribune, 12/21/97)

“[Obama And Ayers] Have Also Appeared Jointly On Two Academic Panels, One In 1997 And Another In 2001.” (Russell Berman, “Obama’s Ties To Left Come Under Scrutiny,” The New York Sun, 2/19/08)

From 1999 To 2002, Barack Obama Served With Ayers On The Board Of Directors For Woods Fund Of Chicago. “[Ayers] served with [Obama] from 1999 to 2002 on the board of the Woods Fund, an anti-poverty group.”(Timothy J. Burger, “Obama’s Chicago Ties Might Fuel ‘Republican Attack Machine’,” Bloomberg, 2/15/08)

During The Time Obama And Ayers Served Together On The Woods Fund, Ayers Was Quoted Saying “I Don’t Regret Setting Bombs … I Feel We Didn’t Do Enough.” (Dinitia Smith, “No Regrets For A Love Of Explosives,” The New York Times, 9/11/01)

While Obama And Ayers Were Serving On The Woods Fund Together, Ayers Posed Standing On An American Flag For An Article In Chicago Magazine Entitled “No Regrets.” (Marcia Froelke Coburn, “No Regrets,” Chicago Magazine, 8/01)

“William Ayers … [Was] A Founding Member Of The Group That Bombed The U.S. Capitol And The Pentagon During The 1970s.” (Russell Berman, “Obama’s Ties To Left Come Under Scrutiny,” The New York Sun, 2/19/08)

11) DEBATE FACT #10: THE OBAMA-ACORN RELATIONSHIP

Summary:.

Despite what he said tonight, Barack Obama has a long relationship with ACORN that extends back to the early 1990s.

The Facts About Barack Obama’s Record:

ACORN’s Political Action Committee Endorsed Barack Obama For President. “[A]CORN’s political action committee endorsed Barack Obama for President. The endorsement reflects a belief that Obama – who worked as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago – understands that change must come from the ground-up, as part of a working coalition, rather than from position papers.” (Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Op-Ed, “ACORN: Obama Gets It,” The Nation, 2/23/08)

Barack Obama’s Campaign “Paid More Than $800,000″ To ACORN For Get-Out-The Vote Efforts; The Campaign Originally “Misrepresented” The Group’s Work To The FEC. “U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign paid more than $800,000 to an offshoot of the liberal Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now for services the Democrat’s campaign says it mistakenly misrepresented in federal reports. An Obama spokesman said Federal Election Commission reports would be amended to show Citizens Services Inc. — a subsidiary of ACORN — worked in ‘get-out-the-vote’ projects, instead of activities such as polling, advance work and staging major events as stated in FEC finance reports filed during the primary.” (David M. Brown, “Obama To Amend Report On $800,000 In Spending,” Pittsburgh Tribune Review, 8/22/08)

Barack Obama Directed Project Vote And Later Taught Classes For “Future Leaders Identified By ACORN And The Centers For New Horizons.” “In 1992 Obama took time off to direct Project Vote, the most successful grass-roots voter-registration campaign in recent city history. Credited with helping elect Carol Moseley-Braun to the U.S. Senate, the registration drive, aimed primarily at African-Americans, added an estimated 125,000 voters to the voter rolls–even more than were registered during Harold Washington’s mayoral campaigns. ‘It’s a power thing,’ said the brochures and radio commercials. Obama continues his organizing work largely through classes for future leaders identified by ACORN and the Centers for New Horizons on the south side.” (Hank De Zutter, Op-Ed, “What Makes Obama Run?” Chicago Reader, 12/8/95)

In 1992, Barack Obama Was Hired By ACORN To Run A Voter Registration Effort. “Indeed, Mr. Obama has extensive connections with the granddaddy of activist groups, Acorn (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which has gotten millions in government grants for its low-income housing programs. In 1992, Acorn hired Mr. Obama to run a voter registration effort. He later became a trainer for the group, as well as its lawyer in election law cases. Acorn’s political arm has endorsed Mr. Obama while its ‘voter education’ arm has pledged to spend $35 million to register people this fall — despite a history of vote fraud scandals that have led to guilty pleas by many Acorn employees.” (John Fund, “Obama’s Liberal Shock Troops,” The Wall Street Journal, 7/12/08)

Barack Obama Was Part Of Team Of Lawyers Who Represented ACORN In A Suit Against The State Of Illinois. Obama was part of a team of attorneys who represented the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in a lawsuit against the state of Illinois in 1995 for failing to implement a federal law designed to make it easier for the poor and others to register as voters. (Mike Robinson, Obama Got Start In Civil Rights Practice, The Associated Press, 2/20/07)

ACORN Received Grants From The Woods Fund When Barack Obama Served on The Board Of Directors

The Chicago ACORN Received Grants Of $45,000 (2000), $30,000 (2001), $45,000 (2001), $30,000 (2002), And $40,000 (2002) From The Woods Fund. (Donors Forum Website, ifs.donorsforum.org: http://ifs.donorsforum.org/ , Accessed 6/10/08)

NOTE: From 1993 To 2002, Barack Obama Served On The Board Of Directors For The Woods Fund. (Tim Novak and Fran Spielman, Obama Helped Ex-Boss Get $1 Mil. From Charity, Chicago Sun-Times, 11/29/07)

12) McCain Tonight: “I am not President Bush“

John McCain: Sen. Obama, I am not President Bush, if you wanted to run against President Bush you should have run four years ago. I will take this country in a new direction.”

Watch here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLAK2RXuoj0

And longer version here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-R1OHKSPWRI

13) Obama Misleads on ACORN Tonight

This from Obama on ACORN is obviously false:

OBAMA: The only involvement I’ve had with ACORN is, I represented them alongside the US justice department in making Illinois implement a motor voter law that helped people get registered at DMVs.

See full extent of relationship here:

ACORN’s Political Action Committee Endorsed Barack Obama For President. “[A]CORN’s political action committee endorsed Barack Obama for President. The endorsement reflects a belief that Obama – who worked as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago – understands that change must come from the ground-up, as part of a working coalition, rather than from position papers.” (Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Op-Ed, “ACORN: Obama Gets It,” The Nation, 2/23/08)

Barack Obama’s Campaign “Paid More Than $800,000″ To ACORN For Get-Out-The Vote Efforts; The Campaign Originally “Misrepresented” The Group’s Work To The FEC. “U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign paid more than $800,000 to an offshoot of the liberal Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now for services the Democrat’s campaign says it mistakenly misrepresented in federal reports. An Obama spokesman said Federal Election Commission reports would be amended to show Citizens Services Inc. — a subsidiary of ACORN — worked in ‘get-out-the-vote’ projects, instead of activities such as polling, advance work and staging major events as stated in FEC finance reports filed during the primary.” (David M. Brown, “Obama To Amend Report On $800,000 In Spending,” Pittsburgh Tribune Review, 8/22/08)

Barack Obama Directed Project Vote And Later Taught Classes For “Future Leaders Identified By ACORN And The Centers For New Horizons.” “In 1992 Obama took time off to direct Project Vote, the most successful grass-roots voter-registration campaign in recent city history. Credited with helping elect Carol Moseley-Braun to the U.S. Senate, the registration drive, aimed primarily at African-Americans, added an estimated 125,000 voters to the voter rolls–even more than were registered during Harold Washington’s mayoral campaigns. ‘It’s a power thing,’ said the brochures and radio commercials. Obama continues his organizing work largely through classes for future leaders identified by ACORN and the Centers for New Horizons on the south side.” (Hank De Zutter, Op-Ed, “What Makes Obama Run?” Chicago Reader, 12/8/95)

In 1992, Barack Obama Was Hired By ACORN To Run A Voter Registration Effort. “Indeed, Mr. Obama has extensive connections with the granddaddy of activist groups, Acorn (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), which has gotten millions in government grants for its low-income housing programs. In 1992, Acorn hired Mr. Obama to run a voter registration effort. He later became a trainer for the group, as well as its lawyer in election law cases. Acorn’s political arm has endorsed Mr. Obama while its ‘voter education’ arm has pledged to spend $35 million to register people this fall — despite a history of vote fraud scandals that have led to guilty pleas by many Acorn employees.” (John Fund, “Obama’s Liberal Shock Troops,” The Wall Street Journal, 7/12/08)

Barack Obama Was Part Of Team Of Lawyers Who Represented ACORN In A Suit Against The State Of Illinois. Obama was part of a team of attorneys who represented the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) in a lawsuit against the state of Illinois in 1995 for failing to implement a federal law designed to make it easier for the poor and others to register as voters. (Mike Robinson, Obama Got Start In Civil Rights Practice, The Associated Press, 2/20/07)

ACORN Received Grants From The Woods Fund When Barack Obama Served on The Board Of Directors

The Chicago ACORN Received Grants Of $45,000 (2000), $30,000 (2001), $45,000 (2001), $30,000 (2002), And $40,000 (2002) From The Woods Fund. (Donors Forum Website, ifs.donorsforum.org http://ifs.donorsforum.org/, Accessed 6/10/08)

NOTE: From 1993 To 2002, Barack Obama Served On The Board Of Directors For The Woods Fund. (Tim Novak and Fran Spielman, Obama Helped Ex-Boss Get $1 Mil. From Charity, Chicago Sun-Times, 11/29/07)

14) DEBATE FACT #11: ACHIEVING ENERGY INDEPENDENCE

Summary:.

Barack Obama’s energy plan will “do nothing to answer the nation’s long-term needs.”

The Facts About Barack Obama’s Record

The Detroit News: Barack Obama’s Energy Plan Will “Do Nothing To Answer The Nation’s Long-Term Needs.”“The latest additions to Sen. Barack Obama’s energy plan, outlined during an appearance in Lansing Monday, may win the Democratic presidential candidate some votes from disgruntled consumers in November, but they’ll do nothing to answer the nation’s long-term needs.” (Editorial, “Obama’s Energy Plan Is Fueled By Populism,” The Detroit News, 8/5/08)

Barack Obama Opposes Offshore Drilling. Obama: “Now the latest scheme is well, we’re going to drill offshore. Now, I want to be absolutely clear to everybody about this. If I thought that I could provide you some immediate relief on gas prices by drilling off the shores of California and New Jersey, I understand how desperate folks are. I met a guy who couldn’t go on a job search that lost his job, couldn’t go on a job search because of the high price of gas. Just couldn’t fill up his tank. I met a teacher in South Dakota who loved her job as a teacher on an Indian reservation, she had to quit because the drive was too far, it was taking up too much of her paycheck. I know how bad people are hurting. So If I thought that by drilling offshore, we could solve our problem, I’d do it.” (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks At Campaign Event, Springfield, MO, 7/30/08)

Barack Obama Opposes Immediate Gas Tax Relief For American Families. Obama: “I think John McCain’s proposal for a three month tax holiday is a bad idea.” (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks At Campaign Event, Blue Bell, PA, 4/21/08)

Barack Obama Opposes Encouraging Battery Innovation. Obama: “In this campaign, John McCain is offering the same old gimmicks that will provide almost no short-term relief to folks who are struggling with high gas prices. Gimmicks that will only increase our addiction for another four years.” (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks At Campaign Event, Las Vegas, NV, 6/24/08)

Barack Obama Does Not Support Nuclear Power. Obama: “I start off with the premise that nuclear energy is not optimal. I am not a nuclear energy proponent.” (Sen. Barack Obama, Remarks At Town Hall Event, Newton, IA, 12/30/07)

15) DEBATE FACT #12: THE “MOST PRECTIONIST U.S. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE IN DECADES”

Summary:.

Despite his claims, Barack Obama is the “most protectionist U.S. presidential candidate in decades.”

The Facts About Barack Obama’s Record:

The Wall Street Journal:”On The Record So Far, Mr. Obama Is The Most Protectionist U.S. Presidential Candidate In Decades.” (Editorial, “Change You’ll Have To Pay For,” Wall Street Journal Asia, 5/28/08)

The Wall Street Journal: “Mr. Obama Is Promising Change You Can Believe In. But On Trade, It Is Closer To The Status Quo Americans Will Be Paying For.” (Editorial, “Change You’ll Have To Pay For,” The Wall Street Journal, 5/28/08)

Barack Obama Pledges To Renegotiate NAFTA With The Threat Of A “Potential Opt-Out.” NBC’s Tim Russert: “A simple question. Will you as president say to Canada and Mexico, this [NAFTA] has not worked for us, we are out?” Obama: “I will make sure that we renegotiate in the same way that Senator Clinton talked about, and I think actually Senator Clinton’s answer on this one is right. I think we should use the hammer of a potential opt-out as leverage to ensure that we actually get labor and environmental standards that are enforced.” (Sen. Barack Obama, MSNBC Democrat Presidential Debate, Cleveland, OH, 2/26/08)

Barack Obama Opposes The Colombia Free Trade Agreement. Obama: “The violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labor protections that we’ve insisted be included in these types of agreements.” (WHTM-TV Harrisburg’s “News,” 4/7/08)

Barack Obama Opposes The South Korea Free Trade Agreement. “‘Senator Obama does not support the South Korea free trade agreement in its current form,’ Obama spokesperson Jen Psaki tells ABC News.” (Teddy Davis, “Clinton And Obama Follow Edwards On Trade,” ABC News, abcnews.go.com http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3070540&page=1, 4/23/07)

Barack Obama Voted Against CAFTA Twice. (S. 1307, CQ Vote #170: Adopted 54-45: R 43-12; D 10-33; I 1-0, 6/30/05, Obama Voted Nay; H.R. 3045, CQ Vote #209: Adopted 55-45: R 43-12; D 11-33; I 1-0, 7/28/05, Obama Voted Nay)

“[M]r. Obama Would Have Voted Against Giving The President ‘Fast Track’ Authority To Negotiate More Trade Deals.” (Greg Hinz, “Keyes Guarantees Rocky Ride For GOP,” Crain’s Chicago Business, 8/16/04)

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown Criticized Obama’s Economic Isolationism, Saying It Will “Affect Every Industry” And “Hold Back The Development Of The World.” Prime Minister Brown:”We cannot allow protectionism to become the dominant mood because that will affect every industry and it will hold back the development of the world. If you go to America, the debate is about how they can restrict imports from China and other countries; if you go to parts of Europe, the debate is about heavy-handed regulation of hedge funds, sovereign wealth funds, or other instruments of finance; … there is absolutely no doubt that protectionist sentiment is growing, particularly in America and Europe.” (Sarah Arnott, “Protectionist Mood In US Threatens Progress, Says Brown,” The [London] Financial Times, 5/20/08)

Foreign Minister David Milibrand Urged Barack Obama To Commit To Free Trade After He Opposed Other Free Trade Agreements. “Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Miliband is to urge the United States to remain committed to free trade, he said in comments published on Monday as he begins a five-day visit there. The Financial Times quoted Miliband as saying that Washington must remain committed to global trade ‘in a very fundamental way’ after Democratic Party hopefuls for the US presidency both spoke against free trade pacts.” (“British FM To Push US To Remain Committed To Free Trade: Report,” Agence France Presse, 5/19/08)

“Peter Mandelson, European Trade Commissioner, Has Said The Protectionist Stances Taken By The US Presidential Candidates Risk Taking The World Trading System Back By Decades.” (Alan Beattie, “EU Trade Chief Hits At Democrat Hopefuls,” Financial Times, 5/7/08)

“Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper Says The United States Should Not Reopen Talks On The North American Free Trade Agreement As The Two U.S. Democratic Presidential Hopefuls Have Proposed.” (“Canada’s Prime Minister Warns US It Would Be Making A Mistake To Reopen NAFTA,” The Associated Press, 2/28/08)

“Colombia’s President Sharply Criticized U.S. Presidential Contender Barack Obama On Wednesday For Opposing A Trade Deal With His Country, Calling The Democrat Out Of Touch With The Realities Of The South American Nation.” (“Colombia’s President Criticizes Obama,” The Associated Press, 4/3/08)

16) DEBATE FACT #13: BARACK OBAMA’S COSTLY HEALTH CARE PLAN

Summary:

Barack Obama has proposed a costly health care plan with “zero credible evidence” it will help anyone.

The Facts:

Despite Earlier Claims That It Would Cost Less, Barack Obama Recently Said His Plan Will Cost $150 Billion

Barack Obama Said On “60 Minutes” That His Plan Would Cost $150 Billion. CBS’ Steve Kroft: “How much is it going to cost?  Obama: “$150 billion it’s going to cost, right from the start.”

Biden Seriously Misinformed, Likely Due To Alcohol Problem

When you interview for a job, here is a hint: make sure you know what the job is. Joe Biden failed that test last Thursday. He couldn’t even get right what a vice president does, but the media didn’t notice.

.

The media is all over itself about how smart and experienced Biden is. Political analyst Charlie Cook is quoted in the Washington Post on Saturday as saying “Biden is clearly so much more knowledgeable, by a factor of about a million.” Saturday Night Live does a skit about Biden being smart, if slimy. Meanwhile, Governor Sarah Palin is treated as being nothing more than a simpleton.

Yet, take Biden’s statement from the debate on the role of the vice president:

Vice President Cheney has been the most dangerous vice president we’ve had probably in American history. The idea he doesn’t realize that Article I of the Constitution defines the role of the vice president of the United States, that’s the Executive Branch. He works in the Executive Branch. He should understand that. Everyone should understand that.

And the primary role of the vice president of the United States of America is to support the president of the United States of America, give that president his or her best judgment when sought, and as vice president, to preside over the Senate, only in a time when in fact there’s a tie vote. The Constitution is explicit.

The only authority the vice president has from the legislative standpoint is the vote, only when there is a tie vote. He has no authority relative to the Congress. The idea he’s part of the Legislative Branch is a bizarre notion invented by Cheney to aggrandize the power of a unitary executive, and look where it has gotten us. It has been very dangerous.”

One should be careful when throwing around terms such as “most dangerous” and “bizarre.” But Biden is confusing which part of the Constitution covers the Executive Branch (it is Article II, not Article I). More importantly, the notion that the vice president can preside over the Senate only when there is a tie vote is simply wrong. Nor is it true that the only legislative involvement the vice president has is to break tie votes. The vice president is the president of the Senate, where he interprets the rules and can only be overridden by a vote of 60 senators.

Early vice presidents spent a lot of time in the Senate. Thomas Jefferson even spent his time writing “A Manual of Parliamentary Practice: for the Use of the Senate of the United States.” Modern vice presidents may show up only when they think tie votes will occur, but that is their choice.

This isn’t rocket science. The Constitution on this point is very straightforward: “The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be equally divided.”

Instead, it was Palin who got it right. Besides correctly stating that the vice president holds positions in both the executive and legislative branches, she also noted that:

Of course, we know what a vice president does. And that’s not only to preside over the Senate and [I] will take that position very seriously also. I’m thankful the Constitution would allow a bit more authority given to the vice president if that vice president so chooses to exert it in working with the Senate and making sure that we are supportive of the president’s policies and making sure too that our president understands what our strengths are.

But just as the vice president’s job includes more than simply being ready to assume the presidency if the president dies, the Constitution merely states what the vice president’s minimum responsibilities are.

Compare the uproar over Palin’s answer to Charlie Gibson about the “Bush Doctrine,” a doctrine that Gibson clearly didn’t understand and for which there apparently exist at least four different versions. Where is the outrage over Biden not understanding what vice presidents do? For Biden, his inability to correctly say what vice presidents do was surely his “gotcha” moment.

Yet, this mistake during the debate was hardly unique. Biden got a lot of things wrong in the debate that are going unnoticed by the fact-check media. Take just a few:

– Will McCain’s health care proposals raise taxes? Biden says that McCain’s proposal will cost people money. The Tax Foundation finds that could easily be “roughly deficit-neutral over ten years.”

– Under an Obama Administration the middle class will “pay no more than they did under Ronald Reagan”? No, the tax rates will be similar to the higher rates under Clinton.

– Did “we spend more money in three weeks on combat in Iraq than we spent on the entirety of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan building that country”? No, one year’s worth of spending in Iraq equaled five in Afghanistan.

– France and the U.S. “kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon”? No, and it wouldn’t have made much more sense if he had said “Syria” instead.

– Is it really “simply not true” that Obama said that he would meet with the leader of countries such as Iran without preconditions? No, Obama said “I would.”

– Did Obama warn against letting Hamas participate in Palestinian legislative elections in 2005? No.

– Do “Iraqis have an $80 billion surplus”? No. If oil prices had remained high, it might have reached $50 billion by the end of this year.

– Finally, an amusing point as evidence that Biden is just one of the people he pointed to, inviting anyone to have a beer with him at “Katie’s Restaurant” in Wilmington, Del. Unfortunately, people will have a hard time taking him up on his offer, since the restaurant hasn’t had that name for probably 15 years.

Unfortunately, voters who are trying to get an accurate count on whether the candidates are telling the truth can’t rely on the media. FactCheck.org mentions only one of these points, the size of the Iraqi surplus. The Washington Post mentioned Biden’s misstatement on Hamas and Katie’s restaurant. AOL’s coverage of the errors in the vice presidential debate was by far the worst, though that might not be too surprising given that Tommy Christopher, who wrote their news analysis, also blogs on the Obama Web site. None of these checkers mentioned Biden’s statements about the role of the vice president.

Compare this to the attacks on Sarah Palin:

– FactCheck.org criticizes Palin for claiming that McCain’s health care tax credits will be “budget neutral” – they argue that the tax credit will be larger than the new taxes that the program will impose. Fine, but if the people at FactCheck.org believe that is true and that the Tax Foundation is wrong, Biden’s claim about increased taxes is even more inaccurate. But FactCheck.org doesn’t even mention Biden’s statement from the debate.

– From AOL’s news analysis piece. “Palin: Said that it is untrue that the U.S. is killing civilians in Afghanistan. According to an analysis by the AP, however, the U.S. is killing more civilians than insurgents are.”

What Palin actually said was: “Now, Barack Obama had said that all we’re doing in Afghanistan is air-raiding villages and killing civilians.” Whether one believes the AP estimate or not, the question is whether she was accurately characterizing Obama’s statement of the job that our forces were doing. And Obama said, “We’ve got to get the job done there and that requires us to have enough troops so that we’re not just air-raiding villages and killing civilians” (emphasis added).

– FactCheck.org’s first critique claims that Palin was wrong to claim that troop levels in Iraq are down to their pre-surge levels. They are correct that after the recently announced drawdown, 6,000 more troops will be in Iraq than immediately before the surge. But why not mention that 84 percent of the 38,000 troops in the surge are home or are in the process of coming home?

The media seems to have been covering for Biden for some time. While news stories still talk about Dan Quayle’s spelling mistake 18 years later, there has been almost no news coverage of Biden’s numerous wacky statements. What if Quayle had said something similar to Biden’s recent statement that, “When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn’t just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, ‘Look, here’s what happened.’” A neat trick given that Herbert Hoover was president in 1929 and no one was watching television.

It might not fit the simple template for a 36-year veteran of the Senate to not understand what vice presidents do (after all, eight vice presidents have served with him), but Biden knew less about this than the political outsider, Sarah Palin. Given that they are running to be vice president, why didn’t that story dominate the news coverage after the debate?

McCain’s Brother, Joe – Blasts Campaign! See Video Below

Joe McCain

Frustrations inside John McCain’s camp boiled over on the eve of tonight’s presidential debate as the candidate’s brother unleashed an e-mail blasting the campaign’s  “counter-productive” strategy.” Let John McCain be John McCain,” wrote Joe McCain in a missive sent out shortly before midnight Monday.

“Make ads that show John not as crank and curmudgeon but as a great leader for his time.”McCain’s younger brother was sharply critical of unnamed top campaign officials who “so tightly ‘control the message’”  that they are preventing reporters from speaking with those, like himself, who know the candidate best.

His complaint echoed those of other McCain intimates who have chafed for months at orders not to speak with the news media without advance permission from the campaign. The younger McCain called this news management strategy “counter-intuitive, counter-experiential, and counter-productive” because it conflicts with his brother’s reputation for openness.

The clampdown “has gradually bled away all the good will that this great man had from the press,” he wrote. He described himself as a sailor warning that the campaign is sailing into shoals “while the rest of the officers and warrants are poring over plans and maps and high-minded thoughts.”

The McCain campaign declined to comment. His angry dispatch to McCain campaign and Republican Party officials appears to reflect growing restiveness among supporters over the direction of the presidential contest.

more about “McCain’s Brother Blasts Campaign “, posted with vodpod

Obama Speech In Middle-School English Text

A Wisconsin mother is furious that her tax dollars helped buy a middle-school textbook that includes a passage from Barack Obama’s speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention — but has no mention of John McCain.

The woman, who spoke to FOXNews.com on the condition of anonymity because she feared business reprisals, became upset after her 13-year-old son told her his advanced English class in Racine, Wis., had read about Barack Obama in a textbook, “McDougal Littell Literature, Grade 8.”

The textbook, published by an arm of Houghton Mifflin Company, focuses on a portion of Obama’s 1995 autobiography, “Dreams From My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,” in which Obama writes about a month-long visit by his Kenyan father when he was 10 and living in Hawaii.

The 20-page section, which kicks off with a student discussion of “What Makes You Proud?” ends with a portion of Obama’s  speech, “Out of Many, One,” at the 2004 Democratic Convention in Boston, and a photo of him there, surrounded by Obama placards.

Obama was running for Senate in Illinois in 2004.

“The kicker was the photo towards the end with Obama and at least eight visible Obama signs, and the one with the Web site on it,” she said. “Obviously, it was the 2004 Web site, but you can still go right to it, and I think that to me was just over the top. It didn’t need to be in there.”

The mother said any mention of Obama should have included passages from other politicians, such as McCain.

“McCain is a prisoner of war — that’s a story in itself,” she said. “Or Dick Cheney’s wife has written children’s stories. Was that in any of their books?”

But she said she’d prefer not to see any politicians in the English text.

“As a taxpayer, we’re paying for these books, and there should not be a story about Obama in this book right now and there should not be a story about McCain in this book,” she said.

Obama’s passage appears in the textbook along with noted authors and thinkers, including Maya Angelou, Isaac Asimov and Emily Dickinson, according to ClassZone.com, which is the online educational supplement to the book.

A representative from the Racine Unified School District said no parent has complained to officials about the text, which is used by students in the district’s eight middle schools. The district has 21,000 students.

“The Racine Unified School District DOES NOT endorse any candidate or political party,” the school said in a written statement. “The choice of this selection was to provide a contemporary and multicultural figure to explore the unit on community.”

Six teachers and three district staff members chose the textbook, district spokeswoman Stephanie Hayden said.

“The Racine Unified School District is a multicultural school district with 49 percent of our student body comprising students of color,” the school said. “Identifying materials that reflect our student population is a priority.

“The selection in question is part of a larger unit centered around the question, ‘If the people within a community accept each others’ difference, how do individuals and their community benefit and prosper?’” the statement continued. “The selections, ‘Dreams of My Father’ and ‘Out of Many, One,’ fit into the curriculum by requiring students to engage in the central question around these and other selections.”

The mother, who says she’s an independent, contacted the blog “Real Debate Wisconsin” to tell it about the textbook, rather than approach teachers, because she said she didn’t want to jeopardize her son’s grades.

She said she was also angered by Obama’s biography in the textbook that included a passage entitled “A Life of Service,” which said Obama “was offered jobs working for an important judge and in high-powered law firms, but instead he chose to return to Chicago to practice civil-rights law.”

“They had to go into all the details about his ‘life of service’ and how he could have taken a higher paying job … It just doesn’t feel right to me. It’s very political,” the woman said.

Her son, she said, doesn’t understand her concern.

“It worries me that, you know, he’s in eighth grade and already he’s thinking that Obama is just going to win because everybody likes him,” she said. “Why in a school does everybody like him? I’ve got to believe there are kids who like McCain too.”

Maxine Waters Caught Lying About Fannie Mae Ties on ‘Real Time’

Maxine Waters, a key Democrat congresswoman that has been implicated in blocking government oversight that could have prevented the current financial crisis, was caught lying Friday evening about her connection to failed lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. During the panel discussion of HBO’s “Real Time,” Waters was challenged by the Wall Street Journal’s Stephen Moore about the campaign contributions she’s received from these government sponsored enterprises.Despite what public records clearly show, Waters denied she had ever taken any money from these two companies

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Rotten ACORN & Voter / Bank Fraud

Photo ID: ACORN Voter ID Scandal in 2006 Could Have Been Avoided

People are still bombarded with phrases from politicians like, “make every vote count!”

While there are significant complaints from groups affiliated with radical leftist organizations in the the United States, these organizations are often the most significant offenders who disenfranchise the votes of other citizens through watering down the ballots via voting fraud.

Washington State speaks out against one such organization which has been caught and convicted of disenfranchising voters and a plan to keep it from ever happening again.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/05/02/voter-fraud-watch-could-acorn-scandal-in-washington-have-been-avoided-with-photo-id/

…if photo I.D. requirements had been the law in Washington state, the voter fraud scandal involving ACORN in 2006 would never have happened. According to Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed, the incident “was the worst case of election fraud in our state’s history. It was an outrage.”

Two years ago ACORN submitted just over 1,800 new voter registration forms, but there was a problem. The names were made up — all but six of the 1,800 submissions were fakes. Reed said he was appalled.”

This is not a recent or isolated matter with ACORN.

As a reminder, ACORN was founded in 1970 and successfully lobbied the the Democratic Party in 1977, to create an indirect funding mechanism, in which political activities would be donated in return, which apparently included voter fraud. The legislation was called “The Community Reinvestment Act of 1977″ – the root of the cause of the Sub-Prime Loan Crisis in 2007. In the words of Rev. Wright, “the chickens came home to roost.”

ACORN abuses this Carter/Democratic legislation by organizing followers of their special interest group to complain to the regulatory agency, to starve banks which did not donate money to their politically affiliated community groups or perform enough bad loans to their politically affiliated community group followers.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/dilorenzo/dilorenzo125.html

Other examples of this far-left Marxist organization disenfranchising American voters include:
http://www.rottenacorn.com/activityMap.html

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• 2005 - Two ex-ACORN employees were convicted in Denver, Colorado of perjury for submitting false voter registrations.
• 2005 - Four ACORN employees submitted as many as 3,000 potentially fraudulent signatures on the group’s Albuquerque, New Mexico ballot initiative. A local sheriff added: “It’s safe to say the forgery was widespread.”
• 2005 - the Virginia State Board of Elections admonished Project Vote and ACORN for turning in a significant number of faulty voter registrations. An audit revealed that 83% of sampled registrations that were rejected for carrying false or questionable information were submitted by Project Vote. Many of these registrations carried social security numbers that exist for other people, listed non-existent or commercial addresses, or were for convicted felons in violation of state and federal election law.
  In a letter to ACORN, the State Board of Elections reported that 56% of the voter registration applications ACORN turned in were ineligible. Further, a full 35% were not submitted in a timely manner, as required by law. The State Board of Elections also commented on what appeared to be evidence of intentional voter fraud. “Additionally,” they wrote, “information appears to have been altered on some applications where information given by the applicant in one color ink has been scratched through and re-entered in another color ink. Any alteration of a voter registration application is a Class 5 Felony in accordance with § 24.2-1009 of the Code of Virginia.”
• 2004 - An ACORN employee admitted to forging signatures and registering three of her friends to vote 40 times on Colorado.
• 2004 - A Florida Department of Law Enforcement spokesman said ACORN was “singled out” among suspected voter registration groups for a 2004 wage initiative because it was “the common thread” in the agency’s fraud investigations.
• 2004 - In Michigan, the Detroit Free Press reported that “overzealous or unscrupulous campaign workers in several Michigan counties are under investigation for voter-registration fraud, suspected of attempting to register nonexistent people or forging applications for already-registered voters.” ACORN-affiliate Project Vote was one of two groups suspected of turning in the documents.
• 2004 - North Carolina officials investigated ACORN for submitting fake voter registration cards.
• 2004 - An ACORN employee registered a 13-year-old boy to vote. Citing this and other examples, New Mexico State Representative Joe Thompson stated that ACORN was “manufacturing voters” throughout New Mexico.
• 2004 - In Ohio, a grand jury indicted a Columbus ACORN worker for submitting a false signature and false voter registration form. In Franklin County, two ACORN workers submitted what the director of the board of election supervisors called “blatantly false” forms. In Cuyahoga County, ACORN and its affiliate Project Vote submitted registration cards that had the highest rate of errors for any voter registration group.
• 2004 - In Minnesota, during a traffic stop, police found more than 300 voter registration cards in the trunk of a former ACORN employee, who had violated a legal requirements that registration cards be submitted to the Secretary of State within 10 days of being filled out and signed.
• 2004 - In Pennsylvania, Reading’s Director of Elections received calls from numerous individuals complaining that ACORN employees deliberately put inaccurate information on their voter registration forms. The Berks County director of elections said voter fraud was “absolutely out of hand,” and added: “Not only do we have unintentional duplication of voter registration but we have blatant duplicate voter registrations.” The Berks County deputy director of elections added that ACORN was under investigation by the Department of Justice.
• 2004 - In Texas, ACORN turned in the voter registration form of David Young, who told reporters “The signature is not my signature. It’s not even close.” His social security number and date of birth were also incorrect.
• 2004 - In Wisconsin, the district attorney’s office investigated seven voter registration applications Project Vote employees filed in the names of people who said the group never contacted them. Former Project Vote employee Robert Marquise Blakely told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he had not met with any of the people whose voter registration applications he signed, “an apparent violation of state law,” according to the paper.
• 2003 - In Missouri, of 5,379 voter registration cards ACORN submitted in St. Louis, only 2,013 of those appeared to be valid. At least 1,000 are believed to be attempts to register voters illegally.
• 1998 - In Arkansas, a contractor with ACORN-affiliated Project Vote was arrested for falsifying about 400 voter registration cards.

The historical message is clear – The Radical Leftists are doing well in the United States through their corruption via the Democratic Party. The protection of the Republic through reasonable means of ensuring that only valid citizens are voting can easily be managed through Photo ID.

In most States of The Union, you need a photo id in order to travel by car or plane as well as purchase alcohol, tobacco, and even medication. Only the most subversive wish to “game” the election system – protecting the integrity of the voting system via Photo ID is not too much to ask.

Obama Addresses ACORN Workers, Farrakhan Calls Obama ‘The Messiah’

Obama tells ACORN workers he will be calling them in to influence policy even before his inauguration!  Video shows Farrakhan calling Obama “The Messiah”.

ACORN & Obama At Root Of Financial Mess

Part of what got us in to this entirely mess is Fannie and Freddie Mac and the fiasco, politicians, of course, all blaming one another. Barack Obama pointing the finger away from himself, but Howard Kurtz says that ACORN, a group that has endorsed Obama for president, is at the root of this big financial mess.  Now, ACORN is the same group that’s being investigated for allegations of voter fraud, in states across the country.

Stanley Kurtz, He’s a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Institute, talked about ACORN:

“ACORN is a group of very radical community organizers. They have been very strongly supported by Barack Obama, although he sometimes likes to deny that connection. Obama has channeled the funds to ACORN from various foundations he’s been on. He’s done training for ACORN of their leaders.

And what ACORN does is they try to intimidate banks into giving these high-risk loans to low-credit customers. This is what they did for years, especially in the late ’80s and early ’90s.They would flood protestors into the lobbies of banks, scare away customers, they would send protestors to the homes of bankers, they would break into private offices of bankers to scare them, and they would file complaints under something called the Community Reinvestment Act, which is a law that ACORN used to try to force these banks to make these high-risk loans. These are the very actions/tactics Obama trained the ACORN leaders to use.

The banks were resisting ACORN at that early point. And what happened at that point was that ACORN realized that they would never bring the banks around to these high-risk loans unless it got Fannie and Freddie in on the game, because the banks would say — hey, we can only make that so many of these risky loans to you because Fannie and Freddie won’t buy them. They have very high credit standards. So, ACORN went its Washington lobbyists, who put pressure on its Democratic allies in Congress, and that’s how Fannie and Freddie got their credit standards changed and really watered down so tremendously.  Then everyone said, oh, we can make a lot of money at this, but what really started the contagion of these bad loans was the pressure from ACORN and Democrats on to Fannie and Freddie.

I think the outcome of the election is going to make a huge difference as far as getting to the bottom of ACORN’s actions.  If McCain comes in, I think ACORN is going to get seriously investigated. And if Barack Obama comes in, then they’ve got one of their best friends in the world as president and I think they’re going to be in gravy.”

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Gun Ban Obama

On the campaign trail, Senator Obama hides behind carefully chosen words and vague statements of support for sportsmen and gun rights to sidestep and camouflage the truth. But even he can’t hide from the truth forever… his voting record, political associations, and long standing positions make it clear that, if elected, Barack Obama would be the most anti-gun president in American history. The facts speak for themselves. This election day, vote to defend freedom…because if Obama wins, you lose.

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Barack Obama and ACORN Fraud

As a result of Senator Obama’s blind ambition, he has a long history with the group. Barack Obama trained members of the Chicago ACORN staff, and his campaign has paid more than $800,000 for “voter registration” to an ACORN front group.

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Ayers

Dangerous Barack Obama

Friends With The Enemy?

A Yonkers, N.Y., councilman whose home was bombed nearly four decades ago by the Weather Underground says Barack Obama should know better than to associate with the domestic terror group’s co-founder, Bill Ayers. “Barack Obama constantly says, ‘I was only 8 years old when this happened.’ That’s kind of his throwaway line,” John Murtagh told FOX News Thursday morning. “I’m not questioning what Barack Obama was doing when he was 8 years old. I’m questioning his behavior as an adult to choose his friends, mentor and longtime personal and professional colleague.” Murtagh discussed the 1970 bombing as John McCain’s campaign put renewed focus on Obama’s ties to Ayers, who lives in Chicago and is an education professor at the University of Illinois.

Murtagh, whose father was a New York Supreme Court justice when his family’s home was targeted, put out a statement on behalf of McCain’s campaign Wednesday claiming “Barack Obama’s friend tried to kill my family.”

Obama has said his relationship with Ayers did not extend beyond serving with him on an education board in Chicago. He has condemned Ayers’ Vietnam War-era attacks, and his campaign has said Obama did not know of Ayers’ radical past when Ayers held a campaign event at his home for Obama in 1995.

But Murtagh cast doubt on the narrative out of the Obama campaign, saying it would make the Democratic presidential candidate “the dumbest man that ever graduated from Columbia and Harvard Law School” if he didn’t initially know about Ayers’ past.

Murtagh also alleged that Obama’s ties to Ayers probably go back earlier, since Ayers’ wife, Weather Underground radical Bernadine Dohrn, at one point worked at the same firm where Obama’s wife, Michelle, worked.

“The Weather Underground launched an attack on our family home … looking to kill us,” Murtagh told FOX News. “I believe if the senator were to come clean and tell us the full story, we’d find out this relationship well predates the fundraiser held in the Ayers home. It goes back to the ’80s.”

McCain released a Web video Thursday criticizing Obama for his relationship with Ayers.

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Nets Condemn McCain Calling Obama ‘That One’; CNN: Palin Racist | NewsBusters.org

Matching the Obama campaign spin, the network reporters and analysts were upset by John McCain, at one moment in the second presidential debate on Tuesday night, referring to Barack Obama as “that one.” CBS’s Jeff Greenfield asserted “there is going to be clearly a major headline soundbite” and insisted “those two words are going to be what the water cooler conversation is tomorrow. Was it demeaning? Was it an insult?  Hell no!

Katie Couric turned to a group of “undecided voters” for their reaction to the phrase. One man “thought it was a little bit childish” and another “undecided” man declared: “I’m really tired of the last eight years of for us or against us and to me that showed that side of McCain coming out and the picky and childish and we’ve had eight years of that.”

On CNN a little past 11 PM EDT, reporter Suzanne Malveaux compared it to Bill Clinton’s characterization of Monica Lewinsky: “It’s like ‘that woman,’ you know, that we’ve heard ‘that woman,’ I mean a lot of people are saying that was the kind of language that was very condescending.” A few minutes later, Democratic hack Paul Begala slimed Sarah Palin as a racist, citing the Associated Press and how “they said her attack on this whole Bill Ayers thing was ‘racially-tinged.’ That’s not what a Democrat said, that’s what the Associated Press said.” There’s a difference? MSNBC viewers heard Chris Matthews pleased by Obama’s “wonderful smile” before he charged McCain’s smile “has a somewhat menacing quality.”

In the post-debate 25 minutes on NBC, Brian Williams relied on Internet chatter as he contended “John McCain took some heat from a lot of people” for ” when he referred to his Senate colleague, an opponent in this race, Senator Obama, as, quote, ‘that one.’ That line got a lot of response on the Internet.”

Obama Admits Bumming Cigarettes – Hasn’t Really Quit

Barack Obama says he wishes he had more time for staying fit. And the Democratic presidential candidate admits that he still smokes cigarettes, “occasionally”.

“Quitting smoking” didn’t create “huge withdrawal symptoms,” the Illinois senator said, partly because he smoked only half a pack per day when he “quit”. His wife, Michelle, pressured him to quit, he said.

Obama’s advice for those trying to kick the habit? “Eliminate certain key connections — that first cigarette in the morning, or after a meal, or with a drink,” he said. “If you can eliminate those triggers, that should help.”

Obama said he’s bummed cigarettes often during the campaign, calling into question his claim to have quit.

“But I figure, seeing as I’m running for president, I need to cut myself a little slack,” he said. Seems in not telling the truth, Obama feels he is entitled to “a little slack” all the time.

“I thank you my friend, thanks for serving.”

John McCain had one of the best moments of Tuesday’s debate in connecting with a Navy veteran, saying “Everything I ever learned about leadership I learned from a chief petty officer, and I thank you. And I thank you my friend, thanks for serving.”

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Fraud Potential Impacted by Early Voting, ACORN

Four weeks before Election Day, Ohio is back in the national spotlight with Republicans arguing that, under its new early-voting law, first-time voters are being allowed to cast ballots without meeting the state’s minimum registration requirements. The GOP complaint puts new focus on the issue of voter fraud, which took on new meaning following the contested presidential election in 2000.

From quirks in state voting laws to concerns over fraudulent registration practices, lawmakers and watchdog groups have also raised the red flag elsewhere over the implications of having different rules in different states, not least of which is the impact of early voting on an ever-changing race.

Early voting “changes the dynamics of the campaign,” said Colorado State University political science professor John Straayer, who noted that voting by mail has already begun in Colorado.

“What that means is that you have a shortened election cycle and a lot of candidate advertising and candidate visits will have a shrunken impact. If something extraordinarily unusual happens in the race, people who have dropped their ballot in the mail are unable to change their minds,” Straayer said.

The intent of early voting, which any state can implement, in accordance with the 10th Amendment, is to increase voter turnout and decrease the costs of maintaining the polls on Election Day. But the practice can unduly influence results, depending upon what issues are dominating the campaign trail at the time people vote, said James Terry, chief public advocate at Consumers Rights League.

He added that altering the election cycle also increases the potential for fraud.

“There’s a variety of different mechanisms that vary greatly from state to state and county to county to prevent potential fraud,” Terry said. “Registration fraud and voting fraud are inextricably linked.”

Indiana, for instance, requires ID cards to prevent fraud, Perry said. Other states check registration against internal databases to verify voters’ identities.

Verifying registration becomes more difficult as Election Day approaches. It’s hard in some states, like Wyoming and Maine, that begin voting as early as 40 days prior to the election. It is much harder in a state with a large population, like Florida, which permits voting to begin 15 days before Election Day.

This year, fraud prevention is even more challenging in Ohio, the “deciding” state in the 2004 election. For one week this year — Sept. 30-Oct. 6 — Ohioans were permitted to register and vote on the same day.

Ohio voters line up to cast ballots early in the 2008 presidential race. Election Day is Nov. 4

Three years ago, Ohio changed its law to allow absentee voting to begin 35 days before Election Day, which is Sept. 30 this year. But residents of the state are allowed to register to vote as late as Oct. 6, creating a one-week overlap in which they can register and vote on the same day.

That overlap has come under fire by the Ohio Republican Party and some Ohio voters, who point out that state law requires voters to have been registered for 30 days before they can cast an absentee ballot. This, they say, creates an unfair situation because it is difficult to immediately verify a voter’s identity.

“This window has created an opportunity for voter fraud,” said Ohio GOP spokesman John McClellan, who faults Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, a Democrat, for allowing the practice to occur.

McClellan, who called the overlap “illegal,” said the law mandates that a resident be registered for 30 days before he or she can be considered a “qualified voter.” In order to receive an absentee ballot, McClellan said, a registrant must sign a ballot indicating that he or she is qualified.

“Clearly, the Democrats in Ohio have publicly stated that they were going to take advantage of this loophole and we believe strongly that these shenanigans are the responsibility of the secretary of state and the Democratic Party,” he said.

But the Ohio secretary of state’s office refuted the claim, saying the overlap “is a legal process” that was actually a result of Republican-led legislation.

In a statement Kevin Kidder, a spokesman for Brunner, said, “The Ohio Supreme Court, composed of seven Republicans — with one Democrat on this particular case who substituted for a justice who is on the ballot and recused herself — a federal district court and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals have all ruled that Secretary Brunner has properly interpreted and applied Ohio law regarding the overlap for registration and absentee voting in Ohio.”

“This is the first election in which issues have been raised regarding the overlap, though it has existed in some form since 1981,” Kidder added.

Inconsistencies in state voting procedures have long been a point of contention.

“In any given state, the laxity of the rules will correlate with greater Democratic voter turnout,” said Georgetown University government professor Chris Hull, citing the overlap practice in Ohio as an example.

He said charges of voter fraud historically have more often been associated with the Democrats,  a majority of which were substantiated, while charges of voter suppression, never substantiated, have been associated with the Republicans.

But perhaps more troubling to lawmakers is the widespread discrepancy in early voting — and the method by which registrants cast their ballots.

Oregon, which requires all voters to cast their ballots by mail only, has effectively “created two election days,” Perry said.

Many voters in Oregon return their ballots by mail immediately after receiving them, while others wait until the deadline several weeks later, creating “a huge spike at the very end,” he said.

An investigator enters the ACORN office in Las Vegas, 10/7/08, as part of a voter fraud raid

Radical leftist Organizations like The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), where Barack Obama once worked, and is still associated with,  have also faced many charges of fraud in their efforts to drive voter turnout during the election, most of them substantiated, as in Washington state in 2006, and October 2008 in Nevada.

Twenty-seven thousand registrations handled by the group from January to July 2008 “went into limbo because they were incomplete, inaccurate, or fraudulent,” Terry said, claiming the group recently came under investigation for registering deceased individuals in certain states. Not so odd, such happenings are dismissed or never reported on by the radical liberal media, like The Atlantic and New York Times.

Obama Ahead In Nevada. Why? ACORN Fraud.

Nevada state authorities seized records and computers Tuesday from the Las Vegas office of an organization that tries to get low-income people registered to vote, after fielding complaints of voter fraud.

Bob Walsh, spokesman for the Nevada secretary of state’s office, told FOXNews.com the raid was prompted by ongoing complaints about “erroneous” registration information being submitted by the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, also called ACORN, whom Barack Obama worked for, and is still associated with.

The group was submitting the information through a voter sign-up drive known as Project Vote.

“Some of them used nonexistent names, some of them used false addresses and some of them were duplicates of previously filed applications,” Walsh said, describing the complaints, which largely came from the registrar in Clark County, Nev.  He said some registrations used the names of some past and present Dallas Cowboys players.

An investigator enters the ACORN office in Las Vegas, 10/7/08, as part of a voter fraud raid

Walsh said agents from both the secretary of state’s office and Nevada attorney general’s office conducted the raid, and “took a bunch of stuff.”

ACORN spokesman Charles Jackson confirmed the group’s Nevada office was raided.

It’s not the first time ACORN’s been under investigation for irregularities in registration records.

In 2006, ACORN committed what  Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed called the “worse case of election fraud” in the state’s history.  In that case, ACORN submitted just over 1,800 new voter registration forms, and all but six of the 1,800 names were fake.

In 1992, Barack Obama worked for Project Vote for about seven months; now Project Vote and ACORN–a coalition of radical leftist community organizations serving low income families–just wrapped up a voter registration drive targeting battleground states Obama needs to win the White House.

Though officially non-partisan, the focus of the ACORN/Project Vote voter drive was 100% focused on groups leaning Democratic in the presidential contest: African American, young, Latino and low income earners. They are called “historically underrepresented in elections” in a press release issued by the group on Monday. Republicans call these target groups Democrats, rightfully so.

ACORN/Project Vote ran voter registration operations in 21 states; included are the battlegrounds Colorado, Florida, Michigan (since move to Obama) Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

McCain campaign spokesman Ben Porritt released this statement after this item was posted.

“ACORN is one of the largest radical organizations in America that represents another questionable association of Barack Obama’s. Obama’s campaign has been endorsed by ACORN’s political action committee and their sister corporation received nearly $1 million from Obama’s campaign which they originally misrepresented on their FEC report. ACORN masquerades their efforts as good yet the endless examples of voter fraud and wrongdoing makes clear that their true mission is to poison the political process. ACORN’s efforts are reminiscent of the sleazy Chicago politics that Barack Obama embraces.”